Every now and then I get this weird itch to put a bunch of stuff in excel. I'm enjoying a quarantine at the moment, so it was as good of a time as any to break one out.
In recent press conferences and media posts, it has been implied that we won't be throwing darts past the Mississippi. Maps circulated showing a six hour driving radius from Blacksburg.
Since I'm not going to get exact on the driving radius relative to a recruit's location, this post is just about driving into a state.
In the 22 cycle there are 377 composite 4 star or higher recruits.
Alabama 15
Alaska 0
Arizona 5
Arkansas 4
California 29
Colorado 2
Connecticut 0
Delaware 0
DC 0
Florida 48
Georgia 32
Hawaii 1
Idaho 1
Illinois 7
Indiana 9
Iowa 4
Kansas 1
Kentucky 3
Louisiana 15
Maine 0
Maryland 8
Massachusetts 2
Michigan 9
Minnesota 2
Mississippi 8
Missouri 8
Montana 0
Nebraska 3
Nevada 7
New Hampshire 0
New Jersey 4
New Mexico 0
New York 1
North Carolina 11
North Dakota 0
Ohio 13
Oklahoma 9
Oregon 2
Pennsylvania 12
Rhode Island 0
South Carolina 5
South Dakota 0
Tennessee 13
Texas 53
Utah 6
Vermont 0
Virginia 13
Washington 6
West Virginia 0
Wisconsin 5
Wyoming 0
International 1
We can reach these states within six hours: Delaware, DC, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia. That gives us access to the state of 110, or just over 29.1% of the blue chip recruits.
Increasing our radius to 9 hours adds the following states: Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York. This adds an additional 38 blue chips, or a hair over 10% of the total.
Totaling those two, we have access to a little over 39.2% of the blue chip recruits for the 22 cycle.
Historically, we have done well to chase Florida. If you add in Florida's 48 blue chip recruits, that brings our total to almost 52% of the 2022 blue chip recruits.
Access doesn't equate to success. But, if we are going to limit ourselves to a certain range, then we have to know what's available and set expectations accordingly. 6 hours is not bad at all. The 9 hour radius doesn't really give us access to additional states I expect us to pull recruits from. It does put us deeper into states like Georgia. Focusing on the six hour radius and adding in flights to Florida gives us solid access to over 41.9%. The extra drive time into Georgia is probably worth the squeeze.
Comments
Florida recruiting has historically paid off for tech.
That's true, but let's not forget that Charley Wiles was a big reason we had the Florida connections.
Of the guys on staff, Coach Jones has had the most success (and experience) recruiting in FL. Holt has signed about half a dozen guys from the state, and Mines has a few to his name as well.
You'd think that Marve may have some connections from his time at FSU (granted, only two years and during the heart of covid), but he wasn't considered to be a great recruiter by most FSU insiders.
Great recruiters pull in great recruits. But getting liked by highschool coaches and getting liked by highschool players are two different things, so Marve might be a conduit to those schools and others can deal the deal. I don't know
Absolutely, I think GA and FL stay on the radar, just maybe not IL, IN, TX and CA.
I highly doubt we are going to abandon FL. It just isn't going to be our focus. That said, let's acknowledge that plans change. Pry wants to reestablish the program in the area and then we can go to expanding. I actually like that building block plan.
I don't think we are abandoning Florida either. My intent was to point out that we are actually very well positioned to access a high number of blue chip recruits if we go this route.
I think I saw a tweet from a coach visiting a school in Florida this week actually
I think outside of the six hour radius you make it pretty targeted. All of Georgia, Florida North of Orlando, and South Jersey. Obviously for your calculations you'd just add those states full recruit allotment.
I think the coaching staff should also be looking at where the general student population hails from. Are there areas within the 6-hour radius that sends more students to Bburg than others? Are there areas outside of it that send a lot of students our way? Those could be places where recruits are easier to get than some others, for all sports not just football.
Just chiming in to say that North and Central Jersey are a little further than 6 hours but have a lot more talent (and population) than South Jersey with higher level of competition due to all the private schools. And we've pulled players from NJ in the past (recently Bullock and Hoyle, further back Nijman and Worilds). If Pry/Bowen have any inroads, it would be fruitful to make targeted approaches in a state that historically sends it's talent elsewhere (although Schiano's staff is beginning to shift that)
bUt StArS dOnT mAtTeR
/s