NYTIMES: As Big Ten Declines, Homegrown Talent Fades and Flees

[BarnBoy]

Pretty good article on the decline of our conference:

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/s...omegrown-talent-fades-and-flees.html?emc=eta1

A few excerpts:

“Can the Big Ten compete?” Mike Farrell, Rivals’ national recruiting director, wrote recently. “My simple answer is this: only if it recruits in the Southeast.”

The SEC sold excellence. The Big Ten sold tradition.

The Big Ten Network president, Mark Silverman, said half a million alumni live in the Northeast.

“By expanding,” he said, “we can plant the flag and say, ‘This is Big Ten territory.’ ”

“Rutgers and Maryland are the catalyst,” he added. “They might be the spark. But the timber and the wood that’s going to grow the fire are the Big Ten alums.”

 

[Governor Sibley]

Look at the Top 250 high school players.

Count the ones that live in the Midwest.

It won't take more than a few seconds.

 

[1983]

Look at the Top 250 high school players.

Count the ones that live in the Midwest.

It won't take more than a few seconds.

It is not a level playing field so to speak because the BIG has increased academic requirements and most Southeastern and Southern schools continue a deep rooted and effective culture of cheating. The NCAA clearinghouse and academic standards are valid all over but the reality is a large amount of athletes elsewhere could never get into the BIG. It would help to have spring football here. Is it really a big deal if you are never a controversial national champion? I am old school, lets just go to the Rosebowl when we can and win it. To me that's the point of playing.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

The Big Ten will have its ups and downs. We'll never be the SEC, but we won't be the laughing stock forever. The last 10 years just feel like forever. If the parity in the conference remains the same and the talent level increases slightly every couple years, it would turn into a pretty great conference with 1 or 2 elite teams every year.

If you ask me though, not getting Missouri was a big oops. Developing into the East shouldn't have been a priority. Developing into the South should have. That Rutgers market share is doing wonders for this conference isn't it?

 

[MaxyJR1]

This would not be a story if just 1-2 of Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan weren't down. It really just comes down to the top of the conference.

PAC 12 has Stanford and Oregon
Big 12 has Oklahoma
SEC has Auburn, LSU, and Alabama
ACC has Florida State
BIG needs a top team to step up. Michigan State running the table would help the conference overall.

 

[Too Long in the Wasteland]

That article overlooks a few things:

1.Most $EC schools have much lower admissions standards that just about any BT school. Has Alabama's admissions office ever rejected their best recruit? That's an annual occurrence here

2.$EC schools are allowed to oversign. BT schools aren't. Most BT coaches would seem a lot brighter if they got 5 mulligans every year. Well, maybe not Hoke, although he'd have a backup QB that could find his helmet. There's also the whole greyshirting issue.

3.This article is a classic case of cherrypicking data. Yeah, they mention Florida poaching some kid out of OH. But how many times has tOSU snagged a top recruit out of FL or TX or CA. It's easy to support your argument if you conveniently overlook contradictory data.

I do agree though that most years you'd be better off getting the #10 player out of one of those 3 states than the #1 player out of most midwestern states. The BT does need to do a much better job of recruiting the sun belt.

 

[MaxyJR1]

I believe that one of the top issues the B1G faces is that the MAC has a great TV deal where their teams get on TV a lot. The B1G has many friendly ties to the MAC and I think it hurts walk-on and recruiting.

If B1G states expanded their spring and summer Flag Football programs for skill development the gap would be closed.

 

[BarnBoy]

2.$EC schools are allowed to oversign. BT schools aren't. Most BT coaches would seem a lot brighter if they got 5 mulligans every year. Well, maybe not Hoke, although he'd have a backup QB that could find his helmet. There's also the whole greyshirting issue.

Didn't know this. Is this just a ethical standard that our conference has adopted?

 

[gopherfield]

One relative point to this was MN having our two top O-line prospects last year sign in the SEC. (Alabama and Arkansas)
When was the last time, if ever, something like this happened? We have always had kids willing to go to a UCLA/USC, Notre Dame, other B1G schools, etc, but two top kids to the SEC? Academics just don't seem to matter anymore. SEC-type kids used to come to the B1G for a better education than they could get at home.

 

[MaxyJR1]

The education angle is way over played. A degree is a degree and experience matters. If I'm looking to make the NFL I will do so at the best football opportunity I get. While doing so I will get an education to fall back on.

You can say that the SEC lets marginal players in and the B1G doesn't. I would say shame on the B1G. If a school can give a kid any education beyond HS while reaping the benefits of their athletic talent, awesome! Players will find the major that appeals to them and they will be better off at the end of the 4-5 years.

 

[dpodoll68]

It is not a level playing field so to speak because the BIG has increased academic requirements and most Southeastern and Southern schools continue a deep rooted and effective culture of cheating. The NCAA clearinghouse and academic standards are valid all over but the reality is a large amount of athletes elsewhere could never get into the BIG. It would help to have spring football here. Is it really a big deal if you are never a controversial national champion? I am old school, lets just go to the Rosebowl when we can and win it. To me that's the point of playing.

What does that have to do with the number of elite HS players in the Midwest?

 

[disco]

It's not just that SEC schools are more lax academically. It's simple demographics.
Over the last 20-30 years, the population in the US has shifted to the south and west, and away from the northeast, midwest and rust belt. The decline of Big Ten football has more or less mirrored that.

I've said it many times. If I'm a kid who is being recruited by Ohio State or Alabama, where am I going to go? Someplace cold and gray in the winter, or someplace warmer where cute girls wear shorts year round?

 

[Goldmember]

It's not just that SEC schools are more lax academically. It's simple demographics.
Over the last 20-30 years, the population in the US has shifted to the south and west, and away from the northeast, midwest and rust belt. The decline of Big Ten football has more or less mirrored that.

That is a frequent argument. And it is totally false. But so is the whole premise of the NYT article.

If population shifts were what is driving the change in the power balance away from Big Ten dominance, then California schools should pretty much all be the best in the country by now. But they're not. They've pretty much gotten a lot worse as the West Coast has grown.

The premise of this this and similar articles is insanely racially tone-def. The SEC has gotten better at college football because they have slowly quit undermining equal access to blacks in the Deep South since the mid-60's. And by the 90's that alone was starting to change the power-balance of college football. That's the real reason. All other causes pale by comparison to this.

It's not that the Midwest's great football players are all moving to the South (they're not). It's that the Deep South is finally allowing the growth, development and access to the game among 35-60% of the population that has lived there since before the Big Ten existed.

 

[hungan1]

What will happen then when the coastal states like Florida and parts Louisiana, and California go under water?

Earthquakes in Cali, The New Madrid fault reawakens in the middle, and the rising water levels due to global warming submerges coastal cities like Los angeles, New Orleans, and New York City.

The population will shift again. But, then football will the last thing on people's minds.

 

[supadupafly]

That is a frequent argument. And it is totally false. But so is the whole premise of the NYT article.

If population shifts were what is driving the change in the power balance away from Big Ten dominance, then California schools should pretty much all be the best in the country by now. But they're not. They've pretty much gotten a lot worse as the West Coast has grown.

The premise of this this and similar articles is insanely racially tone-def. The SEC has gotten better at college football because they have slowly quit undermining equal access to blacks in the Deep South since the mid-60's. And by the 90's that alone was starting to change the power-balance of college football. That's the real reason. All other causes pale by comparison to this.

It's not that the Midwest's great football players are all moving to the South (they're not). It's that the Deep South is finally allowing the growth, development and access to the game among 35-60% of the population that has lived there since before the Big Ten existed.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner folks! Props for stating the real truth and not giving another hoo-hum politically correct answer like most of the others did.

 

[station19]

That is a frequent argument. And it is totally false. But so is the whole premise of the NYT article.

If population shifts were what is driving the change in the power balance away from Big Ten dominance, then California schools should pretty much all be the best in the country by now. But they're not. They've pretty much gotten a lot worse as the West Coast has grown.

The premise of this this and similar articles is insanely racially tone-def. The SEC has gotten better at college football because they have slowly quit undermining equal access to blacks in the Deep South since the mid-60's. And by the 90's that alone was starting to change the power-balance of college football. That's the real reason. All other causes pale by comparison to this.

It's not that the Midwest's great football players are all moving to the South (they're not). It's that the Deep South is finally allowing the growth, development and access to the game among 35-60% of the population that has lived there since before the Big Ten existed.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner folks! Props for stating the real truth and not giving another hoo-hum politically correct answer like most of the others did.

All very true but I would add one more thing. Specialization to one sport has become more and more prevalent among high school kids. You can play football year around in the south, not so much up here in the north.

 

[GopherinPhilly]

Its not just demographics, its also cultural and developmental. We don't have spring football in the midwest. Only a few high schools have a strength and conditioning coach, a nutritionist on staff or year round academic support for athletes.

I live in a community of 40,000 in Florida and they have a full time S & C Coach, a nutritionist on retainer, 4 tutors for athletes and year round football of some kind. Fall football, winter captains practices and S & C traning, Spring Football and summer leagues, captain practices and several camps. What is most funny, is that the summer peewee leagues are run by the HS football coach and all the teams are coached by Asst Coaches and HS Jrs and Srs. They have meetings twice a week all summer to discuss the leagea for 2 hours, that seem awefully similar to football practices.

Football just isn't that important in the midwest. Until it is, we are going to be turning out developed football players like the south and west.

 

[disco]

I don't put any stock into the racial element here. Freshmen today were born in 1996. Even if you go back another 15-25 years, high school and college ball even in the deepest south were well integrated for years at that point.

I hadn't thought of it, but the specialization point is a really excellent one. I've said for years that football (at least here) is the last pure high school sport, because it's the one that isn't year round. Basketball, hockey, soccer, swimming, pretty much every other sport, players are competing year-round in club teams, AAU, etc. Hell, the top flight hockey players don't even play high school hockey anymore - they're shipped off to USHL and developmental teams. That doesn't exist in football here. I can't speak for other Midwestern states, but I have a hard time believing that too many of them have the year-round emphasis on high school football of schools in Texas or Florida.

As for California, I can't speak to that, but I suspect that the high school game just isn't as ingrained in the culture there. I really don't know.

You say it's not demographics, but then explain why Ohio and Pennsylvania, two traditional hotbeds of football talent are now far behind most Southern states in terms of talent. I still say it's a matter of one area declining in population, and one growing.