Interesting comments from ESPN/Richt

#1
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hitandrun

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#1
A couple of nights ago on ESPN radio, the host asked Richt about how heavily he recruits inside the state lines. Richt replied that UGA has the highest # of in-state players of any SEC team for a reason: he believes that kids who grow up in this area wanting to play for UGA their whole lives are more likely to play for the G on their helmet rather than for their own name on the back of the jersey.

It seems to be working for UGA. How would it work for UT? I never could understand why UT has such problems recruiting in-state, or is it just that UT would rather go out of state for some reason???


 
#2
#2
No way we can recruit in state the way GA can. There is nowhere near the talent in Tennessee that there is in GA.
 
#3
#3
Originally posted by hitandrun@Dec 9, 2005 11:35 PM
A couple of nights ago on ESPN radio, the host asked Richt about how heavily he recruits inside the state lines.  Richt replied that UGA has the highest # of in-state players of any SEC team for a reason: he believes that kids who grow up in this area wanting to play for UGA their whole lives are more likely to play for the G on their helmet rather than for their own name on the back of the jersey.

It seems to be working for UGA.  How would it work for UT?  I never could understand why UT has such problems recruiting in-state, or is it just that UT would rather go out of state for some reason???
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Not enough talent in state to produce a top 10 team, except maybe in bb.
 
#4
#4
Agreed and agreed. Tennessee's football talent isn't that great... Georgias is really good.
 
#5
#5
I don't follow the whole recruiting thing very much, but I was pretty sure the talent level in TN wasn't as high as Georgia. But it seems that TN has a propensity to lose the in-state recruits that are highly touted. What seems odd is that every year there seems to be a big in-state recruit that is "considering" UT and then winds up going elsewhere (Riggs being a notable exception that I do recall).

Whatever happened to those two twins that went to Nebraska a few years ago? I think they might have went to school in Hixson (Chattanooga) but since we don't get much Husker football coverage (thank goodness) I never heard anything about them after the went to the cornfields.
 
#6
#6
UT did lose the top WR recruit in the nation last year to USC and he was in nashville. Of course with so many great wr's we have we didnt need him...........
 
#7
#7
my cousin lives in Atlanta, and plays in the 5a guinett county league. You havent seen high school football till you've been down there. The kids are amazingly good. They have a 16,000 seat stadium with a jumbo tron. You are required to be able to seat 10,000 to be in the league. There in state players could blow ours away anyday. Majors recruited heavily in state and alot of his never panned out. On my cousins HS team that went 3-8, 19 or there 22 starters got scholarships. There loaded with talent.
 
#8
#8
I wonder why the Georgia football players are so much better than the boys from Tennessee? I'd venture to guess the states are close to the same size and whatnot, but what gives?
 
#9
#9
I would differ on Richt on the metro Atlanta recruiting. Most people in the metro area are new Georgians. So most of those top caliber players in the metro area could go anywhere and they often do. There's a big fear about out of state schools coming into GA to recruit because of UGA. By all means, camp out in the metro area and you have your choice of talent. You could hit any school here in Gwinnett County or even DeKalb. There's a lot of top talent at Brookwood, Parkview and Stephenson that could easily be pulled to UT if some effort were spent.
 
#10
#10
Originally posted by tidwell@Dec 9, 2005 11:15 PM
I wonder why the Georgia football players are so much better than the boys from Tennessee?  I'd venture to guess the states are close to the same size and whatnot, but what gives?
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One reason is the little league system here. In metro Atlanta, they start young and develop the kids mainly for HS football. Gwinnett and DeKalb have phenomenal leagues from the youngest on up.

Another reason is the rural GA farm boys. You go downstate and these kids in HS easily look like college if not pro.

I don't know what TN has on the local levels of football outside of school but every county here that has a pee wee league has the best HS football in the state.
 
#11
#11
That's true as well. The one thing I have noticed in common with areas with good football is good youth football leagues. Gotta get them started when they are young.

Then you have the farmboy factor, which is just football teams with big physical kids raised on intense manual labor. A lot of schools with quality wrestling squads fall under this category.
 
#12
#12
it seems that tennessee has geographical disadvantages too. Its hard to say that players from memphis are going to feel a strong loyalty to UT in knoxville.
 
#13
#13
Originally posted by CSpindizzy@Dec 9, 2005 10:33 PM
One reason is the little league system here. In metro Atlanta, they start young and develop the kids mainly for HS football. Gwinnett and DeKalb have phenomenal leagues from the youngest on up.

Another reason is the rural GA farm boys. You go downstate and these kids in HS easily look like college if not pro.

I don't know what TN has on the local levels of football outside of school but every county here that has a pee wee league has the best HS football in the state.
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The youth program is the general reasoning behind East and Middle Tennessee's dominance in high school football as well. The country boy factor contributes as well.

Funny though, East (and Middle to a certain extent) Tennessee dominates in football, while West Tennessee/Memphis dominates in basketball.
 
#14
#14
I've felt that way more than once in recent years... that we have become too "national" with kids just using the VOLS for a stepping stone to the NFL, rather than growing up in Tennessee and loyal to the big orange. Unfortunately we wouldn't compete nationally with just homegrown kids... :bad:
 
#16
#16
Originally posted by GAVol@Dec 9, 2005 10:42 PM
No way we can recruit in state the way GA can.  There is nowhere near the talent in Tennessee that there is in GA.
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Hell, the Tennessee Allstars can't even beat Kentucky's anymore. Highschool football in Kentucky is rock bottom.
 
#17
#17
This doesn't totally explain the difference but here are some structural differences between the states.

Georgia Pop - 9 million; growing 8%
Tennessee Pop - 6 million; growing 3.5%



UGA is virtually in the middle of the population center of the state.

UT is 180 miles from the biggest population center and 380 from the second largest population center.
 
#18
#18
Originally posted by volinbham@Dec 10, 2005 11:04 AM
UGA is virtually in the middle of the population center of the state.

UT is 180 miles from the biggest population center and 380 from the second largest population center.
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UGA is still a good distance from Atlanta. It's close but still a good distance. The competition in-state is GA Tech, which could be the equivalent of Vandy in TN.

In GA there's not much competition in-state for schools. Something could change with Brian VanGorder now heading for GA Southern.

But again most of Metro Atlanta is nothing but people from other states. There are very few 'locals' here anymore. This means that in the metro area where HS football is very competitive that anyone can come in here and recruit. The state loyalty factor is a lot lower here than outside the area. Anyone outside the area has grown up listening to Munson and odds are knows people going to UGA. I still say that UT could easily come in to Atlanta and keep pulling talent like they used to: Jamal Lewis for one. There are two good D players at Stephenson; one of which is GT QB Reggie Ball's little brother who I think can reclaim the family honor.
 
#19
#19
Originally posted by oklavol@Dec 9, 2005 10:56 PM
UT did lose the top WR recruit in the nation last year to USC and he was in nashville. Of course with so many great wr's we have we didnt need him...........
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:lolabove: :lolabove:
 
#20
#20
Originally posted by volinbham@Dec 10, 2005 10:04 AM

UT is 180 miles from the biggest population center and 380 from the second largest population center.
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Isn't memphis the biggest pop in tennessee?
 
#21
#21
Originally posted by almostavol@Dec 10, 2005 4:48 AM
hitandrun......

You asked about the twin brothers who played for Hixson High School and then signed with Nebraska. It seems one of them is finishing his career there, but the other one jumped to the NFL after last season.
Here's a link:

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SP...2&Q_SEASON=2005
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I saw both of these guys play in HS. We were recruting Josh as a DB but not Daniel, and they wanted to go to the same school. Josh is the starting SS for the Saints now, while Daniel Redshirted his first year at Neb.
We lost out on them because of a package deal.
 
#22
#22
Originally posted by RockyTopEmpire@Dec 10, 2005 3:22 PM
Isn't memphis the biggest pop in tennessee?
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I thought that the Nashville Metro area had passed the Memphis Metro area recently. If not switch my numbers please :biggrin2:
 
#23
#23
Originally posted by volinbham@Dec 10, 2005 5:21 PM
I thought that the Nashville Metro area had passed the Memphis Metro area recently.  If not switch my numbers please  :biggrin2:
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Memphis still holds about a 170,000 person lead on Nashville.
Shelby County (Memphis) vs. Davidson county (Nashville)
Nashville does have more people in surrounding counties like Williamson which is Franklin and Brentwood, and that would pull them closer if you counted all the surrounding counties around Nashville. Williamson has almost 150,000 in it. Guess it's how you count the Metro areas. If you really look at the 30 mile radious and count Rutherford County which is
Murfreesboro area you can add another 200,000 to the Nashville area and then it would overtake the Memphis area, but county Vs. county Memphis (Shelby) is larger
 
#25
#25
One problem with in state recruiting today is that kids don't grow up with that sense of loyalty to their home state team here anymore. Back in the day, the biggest thrill for most kids was the chance to shine in front homestate fans, because you grew up on UT football. But now with the mass access to so many football games (I mean they play college football games now on tuesday's sometimes during the regular season, TUESDAY'S!!!), kids get exposure to so many other teams and may unfortunately not grow up as Vol fans. The high school talent here probably isn't as good as the rest of the south, but it really hurts when you've got a highly touted player like Patrick Turner in your backyard, and he'd rather go cross country and play as a back-up, than come contribute to the home state guys.
 
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