He's right to a large extent. 2004 is the most recent year I could find the numbers for with a quick Google search, but Florida produces more NFL players per capita than Texas, and South Florida in particular is the biggest hotbed for NFL talent in the country by a pretty comfortable margin. Rivals article - written by Rob Pongetti of all people Houston and Dallas had the 2nd and 3rd most players, so it's not like Texas is inadequate for recruiting. Of course, Davis never said we were. Anyway, Washington D.C., Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina were the 4 top states per capita in producing NFL talent. Florida and virtually the entire Southeast is covered in green on the map. Out of the Northern cities, Detroit has a disproportionately large blob. It's not a huge leap to think that perhaps the best recruiting grounds are poor/underdeveloped areas with large African American populations. Texas has plenty of those areas, but not really as much proportionally as the states in the Deep South. Finally, empirical observation of the top programs in Texas and Florida coincides with what Davis is saying. Schools like Katy, Southlake, and Lake Travis dominate Texas high school football. The top programs in Florida don't seem to follow that same model (except for arguably St. Thomas Aquinas, but it recruits from all over and is basically the Oak Hill Academy of football). Miami Northwestern is in the projects, and it sent something like 8 players to Miami alone last year. Lakeland had 7 guys sign with Florida in 2007, plus another two who went to LSU and Alabama. For the record, none of the Lakeland or Northwestern guys were named Chase or Connor, but there were some Jacorys and Maurkices.
There might be plenty of Maurkices coming from Lakeland HS but you cant say they don't get the proper coaching/training as does a big Texas HS. That is very true about NW. Large surburban schools don't dominate Florida football as much as in Texas but there are stil plenty Florida surburban schools that have had success.
Little old Corsicana here sends guys to the NFL year after year. I will agree there are some great programs in Texas that get players into college due more to the success and publicity of the program. But that is far from the rule. He got suckered somewhere along the way and holds a grudge.
there are kids that were either overhyped or did not really light it up "as expected". A 5 star reciever from Grand Prairie a few years back is 1 example. It seems that there are far more examples though that blossom from nowhere on the Div1 stage like Major Applewhite and Colt McCoy.
its pretty common & has been for years to evaluate a kids upside... it's a stretch statement to a degree, but valid up to a point as well.
I'm not sure I can remember any top level Fla recruit signing with a Texas school while annually 3-6 Texas players head sunshining..
the most talented HS football team in Texas history might have been the Dallas Carter team with jesse armstead and those idiots that went on the armed robbery spree.
Kids max out athletically for a lot of reasons, and no state has a monopoly on star high school players that flame out in college. Sorry, but I don't buy the argument that training and teaching advantages are that much of a disadvantage to Texas high school players. If anything, take a player with talent, give him the best available coaching and training programs, high level competition, and I think it's reasonable to assume that will give the player a leg up at the next level, college football, generally speaking. Maybe Davis had a bad experience with some Texas player he recruited to Miami. I would imagine that if you talk to any coach who's recruited Texas heavily, you'd find that some players from here don't pan out. Some California high school players, and some from Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other hotbeds don't turn into stars in college either. I wonder how many championships Barry Switzer, as an example, would have won without the best Texas high school talent he could recruit or buy?
I dont completly agree with Butch Davis but he is essentially saying that he thinks that a lot of the kids that come from programs that the best money can buy like Westlake, Hihgland Park or Southlake might allready be maxed out by the time they graduate high school. There are always exceptions such as Chase Daniel, or Matt Stafford, but most of these top Texas programs dont have a ton of great college players. I think Texas talent is very good, but somewhat overated. I think Texas is clearly behind California and Florida when it comes to producing top talent. Florida produces more NFL players than Texas despite having a nearly 6 million less people. California and Florida also send a lot of players out of state. This idea that texas is the only state that has kids play for out of state programs is silly. There are a whole bunch of Florida players that have excelled for schools that were not named Miami, Florida St or Florida. The 10 national titles that the state of Florida has won the past 25 years is something that is absolutley unreal. The state of Texas has never had a run like that in the game of college football.....so its not right to say "well if Texas players stayed in state we would have those type of results" We cant say that...because its never happened. Where i disagree with Davis is that there are plenty of upper middle class programs that send a ton of players to top 25 college programs. Schools such as St Thomas Aquinas in Ft Lauderdale, Mater Dei and Mission Viejo in Orange County and De La Salle in the bay area are all schools that have very high resources.
Texas has never had a situation where all POWERHOUSE programs were in different conferences (FSU-ACC,Miami-Big East, Florida-SEC). I don't recall the ACC or Big East ever being real powerhouse conferences and I don't recall Florida really being great until the mid 90's.
UT did not have any players on the roster from Florida this year that I am aware of. Irby is from Cali but most are from Texas. Tech and A&M don't have any Floridians that I know of either. But this years rosters show that the 3 big teams in Florida certainly come calling on Texas HS players as listed below. Florida Antwine, Brandon DT 6-0 295 So (2V) Garland, TX (Garland HS) Bushell, Adrian DB 5-10 183 Fr (HS) DeSoto, TX (DeSoto HS) Casey, Tate TE 6-6 251 Sr (4V) Longview, TX (Longview HS) Hines, Omarius WR 6-1 205 Fr (HS) Corsicana, TX (Corsicana HS) Moody, Emmanuel RB 6-0 210 So (2V) Coppell, TX (USC) Moore, Kestahn RB 5-10 212 Sr (3V) Arlington, TX (Summit HS) Nelson, David WR 6-5 215 Jr (3V) Wichita Falls, TX (Rider HS) Williams, Mon RB 6-2 210 So (2V) Mesquite, TX (Horn HS) Florida State Alexander, Mister LB 6-2 225 So (2V) Aldine, TX (Eisenhower HS) Mangum, Korey CB 6-0 200 Jr (3V) La Marque, TX (La Marque HS) Ponder, Christian QB 6-2 216 So (2V) Colleyville, TX (Heritage HS) Miami Byrd, Tyrone OL 6-5 310 Sr (4V) Missouri City, TX (Hightower HS) Cook, Taylor QB 6-7 225 Fr (HS) Eagle Lake, TX (Rice Consolidated HS) Fox, Jason T 6-7 306 Jr (2V) Fort Worth, TX (North Crowley HS) McNeal, Shawnbrey RB 5-11 190 So (1V) Dallas, TX (Madison HS) Youngblood, ReggieT 6-5 313 Sr (3V) Houston, TX (Booker T. Washington HS)
I will say this... the rabbit theory is dumb. Even in the deepest podunk rural america, they have guns. Or traps. People don't chase rabbits for dinner, at least not on a regular basis where it would develop their muscles a certain way.
There is truth in saying that there are plenty of players in this state who are the product of regimen that starts in 7th grade through weight training, football camps, 7 on 7 year round, the ability to specialize in a position and learn it inside and out over the course of 6 years. However, as a recruiter it's your job to spot those and in my opinion, they're not hard to find. You can't shut the door on all of them, just as you wouldn't shut the door on the raw athlete. There have been system guys for a long time HS football, they're just more prevelent now. The same attributes you look for in a college player never change- speed, strength, agility, etc. I know that few players are recruited for their upside. You have to be blessed with a certain set of tools to make it at that top 25 level. I don't know why Davis would make these comments. Like a typical arrogant ******* college coach, he puts the blame elsewhere. Don't blame a kid who busted his *** and faded on you. Blame yourself for not seeing the subtle, and sometimes obvious signs right in front of your face.
