Iowa and ISU outshine the sunshine state teams

[uihawk82]

The pendulum has swung to a place in P5/Div1 football to where it maybe has never been where Iowa 7-2 and ISU 6-3 are rated, ranked, and way ahead of those yearly powerhouses Florida, Florida St, and Miami. Florida has so many really good football players I never thought we would see this day unless at a very small probability. Maybe the inclusion of Central and South Florida and a couple of other Florida schools going Div1 have watered down the talent at their 3 main schools. Clemson and Georgia along with some other southern schools are maybe getting more of those top Florida players. But for Iowa and ISU to both be on top of them with a combined 13-5 record to the Florida schools slightly under .500 record is an amazing achievement for the two northern schools that split players from some 1/7th to 1/8 the population. And there has always been the natural advantage to baseball and football players in the south to be able to practice outdoors all year that gives them an advantage.

First, what has happened to those Florida programs? And 2 can the hawks and ISU keep it up?

 

[Luftgekuehlt67]

I recently did an analysis of the consensus All-America teams going back to 1999 (Ferentz's first year) looking into where each consensus All-American graduated high school.

Since 1999, Florida high schools have produced 67 consensus All-Americans. Iowa has produced 5.

Florida's immediate neighbor to the north, Georgia, produced 37 consensus All-Americans during this time period. Alabama and the Carolinas are also relatively large talent producers, combining for 40 consensus All-Americans in this time window. Louisiana alone has produced 21. The SEC wins everything for a reason.

Iowa's most productive neighbors are Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri, which have produced 10, 9, and 9 respectively. It's not exactly a talent rich region.

The best situated Big Ten team in terms of in-state talent pool is, unsurprisingly, Ohio State. The state of Ohio has produced 33 consensus All-Americans dating back to 1999 and a whole bunch of them have gone to Ohio State. Ohio State has a whole host of mid-majors to contend with, but if you think a lot of top flight Ohio talent is taking a Cincinnati offer over an OSU offer, you're crazy. Ohio State has unofficial "right of first refusal" status with those kids.

Penn State would probably be next, as Pennsylvania has produced 18 consensus All-Americans over this time period. They have to contend with Pitt, but they have been horribly up and down (mostly down) for a good long while now. New Jersey is also a relative hotbed, having produced 15 consensus All-Americans. Many (most?) of those kids are actually suburban Philly kids, so you have to figure on Penn State having a good line on some of those.

Interestingly, New York high schools haven't produced a single consensus All-American this century. Obviously, most of New York's population is clumped into the NYC metro, which produces loads of basketball talent, but with football being a mostly suburban/rural sport, it seems the still sizeable "upstate" population is probably lagging behind a bit.

 

[Luftgekuehlt67]

I'll add that Wisconsin is surprisingly well positioned. Wisconsin high schools have produced 10 consensus All-Americans dating back to 1999. Wisconsin is, of course, the only D1 football program in the entire state so, when you look at things in that light, you see that Wisconsin actually has a pretty nice little head start on things up there in terms of pulling talent.

 

[Luftgekuehlt67]

Sorry UI, didn't mean to hijack your thread, this is just where my head is right now and it sort of spilled out!

To address your comments re: the Florida schools struggling...it's a major opportunity right now. As someone pointed out in another thread, if you look at that top 10 class Iowa pulled in the mid 00's, that came at a time when there were tons of regional job openings and, coming off of back-to-back-to-back top 10 finishes didn't hurt either! A perfect storm, really. Still very proud to see the Iowa schools outperforming teams that have everything on a silver platter in terms of talent. Maybe Iowa could steal a few Florida kids, but that's a very tall task. Florida and Iowa might as well be two different planets to your average Florida HS D1 recruit.

These programs in talent rich states, IMO, sort of lead the charge as far as the "switching coaches every 3 years" trend goes. I think they can get away with it to a certain extent. If you're a P5 in Texas, Florida, or California (or you're Ohio State), it's kind of CFP or bust. Probably throw Georgia in there while you're at it. A lot of turnkey programs in those states - why not keep spinning the coaching wheel until it comes up "elite"? That drives a lot of the churn in the coaching market IMO and makes what Iowa has done with Fry and Ferentz all the more remarkable.

Also, to answer your question "can we keep up?" Lol, nope! Recruiting is *highly* distance-dependent. Within the world of P5, Iowa isn't in the absolute worst position in terms of access to talent, but we're certainly much closer to the bottom than the top in that regard. In the NFL, you have a salary cap and a reverse-order yearly draft. In college football, it's just down to whoever you can get your sweaty hands on. Teams with a lot of in-state/regional talent available will always be at a major advantage.