The decline of PA Football again continues

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

Pennsylvania is 6th overall in population. So it is still up there.

But I am looking at Rivals rankings for the class of 2016 (next year's recruiting class) and not only the lack of kids in the Rivals 100 or Rivals 250 strikes me, it is overall the rankings of kids here.

PA has a Top 30. New Jersey is 11th, Maryland is 19th and they have a Top 35. Virginia is 12th and has a Top 40. North Carolina is 10th and has a Top 50! Ohio is 7th overall and has a Top 40. These are key recruiting areas for us. Also, DC has at least a Top 10.

Here is a breakdown of states: I am going to list them in order of Population. Then I will list what Rivals has as a Top Ranking, which means I am guessing players with some P5 Conference interests, though I can see Florida, Cali and Texas which is capped at Top 100 likely has a lot more than this. Nonetheless, Top 100 says enough. So, listing Pop Rank, Rivals Player Rank, No of 5 Stars, No of 4 Stars. No of 3 Stars. I am not doing all 50 states, just states that have at least a Rivals top 20 or.......is in the top 10 in population.


State Pop Rank Top Players Rank 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars
California 1 Top 100 2 42 Over 100
Texas 2 Top 100 1 39 Over 100
Florida 3 Top 100 6 36 Over 100
New York 4 Top 10 (yes 10) 0 1 Only 5
Illinois 5 Top 25 0 6 19
PA 6 Top 30 0 7 19
Ohio 7 Top 40 0 12 At least 28
Georgia 8 Top 65 2 22 At least 41
North Carolina 9 Top 50 2 12 30
Michigan 10 Top 20 1 6 15
New Jersey 11 Top 35 2 9 19
Virginia 12 Top 40 1 9 27
Tennessee 17 Top 30 0 10 20
Maryland 20 Top 35 0 13 17
Alabama 23 Top 25 3 6 16
South Carolina 24 Top 20 0 5 15
Louisiana 25 Top 45 1 16 At least 28
Mississippi 31 Top 20 0 6 14
DC 51 Top 10 0 4 6

I included DC because these are kids no doubt from Md or Va playing at a Catholic or Prep school in DC. PA is on par with Mississippi which has almost 10 million less people.

The point here, you can see how this sport has migrated out of the Northeast and rust belt as those cities no longer produce nearly the players.

It is why I like Narduzzi and this staff being aggressive outside the region. And no, PA is not enough to sustain one top level program let alone two anymore. I thought this was fairly stark in looking how this once proud football state is so far back now in producing talent.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

I really wish there was a tabular feature that can make data arrays more legible.

 

[Gary77]

I have not noticed anyone making an argument to the contrary, have you?

Regardless, I do agree that this staff is very wise to maintain an aggressive recruiting posture outside of the region.

 

[Pghfan]

Recruits, what is it with your hatred of PA high school football? You always seem to be bashing the WPIAL..

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

Originally posted by Pghfan:

Recruits, what is it with your hatred of PA high school football? You always seem to be bashing the WPIAL..

No hatred Just shocked that when I was looking at the top prospects for this year I didn't see hardly any PA kids. We always say or hear these things, I just thought I would actually look at quantifiable facts. It is nothing hateful, but in many ways it saddens me that this great football area has been reduced to mediocrity. It is going the way of basketball.

 

[PantherRJ]

Sorry, but another asinine post on the decline of PA (or is it the WPIAL) football. I won't waste much time on this - its been addressed often enough in any one of a hundred prior threads.

The formula for Pitt's success has never been to rely exclusively on PA or WPIAL recruits. Ever. But there's no denying that many of the better Pitt players over the years and today are from the western half of the state. Players like Darrelle Revis, Aaron Donald, James Conner, and Tyler Boyd are among the best to have played here. Are they a symptom of this decline? Should we not have recruited them?

How much better would Pitt teams have been if we would have landed even more WPIAL players like Sean Lee, Paul Posluszny, Mike Hull, Darrin Walls, Steve Breaston, Terrelle Pryor, Stefen Wisniewski, Delvon Simmons, Dravon Henry, Nick Kwiatkoski, Will Clarke, Miles Diffenbach, A.Q. Shipley, Dan Mozes, etc. etc. etc.

 

[CaptainSidneyReilly]

Re: Nice Analysis Thank You!

Originally posted by recruitsreadtheseboards:

Pennsylvania is 6th overall in population. So it is still up there.

But I am looking at Rivals rankings for the class of 2016 (next year's recruiting class) and not only the lack of kids in the Rivals 100 or Rivals 250 strikes me, it is overall the rankings of kids here.

PA has a Top 30. New Jersey is 11th, Maryland is 19th and they have a Top 35. Virginia is 12th and has a Top 40. North Carolina is 10th and has a Top 50! Ohio is 7th overall and has a Top 40. These are key recruiting areas for us. Also, DC has at least a Top 10.

Here is a breakdown of states: I am going to list them in order of Population. Then I will list what Rivals has as a Top Ranking, which means I am guessing players with some P5 Conference interests, though I can see Florida, Cali and Texas which is capped at Top 100 likely has a lot more than this. Nonetheless, Top 100 says enough. So, listing Pop Rank, Rivals Player Rank, No of 5 Stars, No of 4 Stars. No of 3 Stars. I am not doing all 50 states, just states that have at least a Rivals top 20 or.......is in the top 10 in population.


State Pop Rank Top Players Rank 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars
California 1 Top 100 2 42 Over 100
Texas 2 Top 100 1 39 Over 100
Florida 3 Top 100 6 36 Over 100
New York 4 Top 10 (yes 10) 0 1 Only 5
Illinois 5 Top 25 0 6 19
PA 6 Top 30 0 7 19
Ohio 7 Top 40 0 12 At least 28
Georgia 8 Top 65 2 22 At least 41
North Carolina 9 Top 50 2 12 30
Michigan 10 Top 20 1 6 15
New Jersey 11 Top 35 2 9 19
Virginia 12 Top 40 1 9 27
Tennessee 17 Top 30 0 10 20
Maryland 20 Top 35 0 13 17
Alabama 23 Top 25 3 6 16
South Carolina 24 Top 20 0 5 15
Louisiana 25 Top 45 1 16 At least 28
Mississippi 31 Top 20 0 6 14
DC 51 Top 10 0 4 6

I included DC because these are kids no doubt from Md or Va playing at a Catholic or Prep school in DC. PA is on par with Mississippi which has almost 10 million less people.

The point here, you can see how this sport has migrated out of the Northeast and rust belt as those cities no longer produce nearly the players.

It is why I like Narduzzi and this staff being aggressive outside the region. And no, PA is not enough to sustain one top level program let alone two anymore. I thought this was fairly stark in looking how this once proud football state is so far back now in producing talent.






It will continue to level off at Top 30 with even fewer Five Star available not as bad as New York and New England! I would not write off Pennsylvania.

Ohio is still producing great prospects and like you said years ago, Virginia and New Jersey is growing with more recruits coming from there every year. Ohio is more important than Pennsylvania since it is Narduzzzi's Home Base and he has been recruiting there for over a Decade.

Good to see Coach Pat's Staff has much experience in the South and ACC Footprint. Pitt is going to need it but Pitt has always needed Stars outside of Pennsylvania.

Penn State's Franklin is still doing a great job in Pennsylvania he already has 2 of the top 10 signed for next year. If it wasn't for the Penn State Scandal Pitt might not have gotten Boyd, Johnson and Holtz?

WVU's Holgrosen has over recruited and Shell's Hissy Fit with Pitt hurt Pitt in Aliquippa with Henry, as Chryst slumbered elsewhere as well, and Rudolph was the primary recruiter in Pennsylvania.

Ohio State Meyer's will take what he wants in Ohio, but Coach Narduzzi will have an impact in Ohio that will hurt MSU and Michigan a tad too.

How well Rutgers and Maryland does now in the Big Ten remains to be seen, but that is Penn State's problem since they play them every year, not Pitt? Wannstedt really had some great players coming from Jersey, but that went away with Pederson's Pushover Ego and failures to have another Coach in place that led to Pederson's own demise, finally.

However, the important thing to remember is a Football Program's just needs a few Top Recruits to become the 2 to 3 Players Leaders to lead a Team to winning by making 3 to 6 Plays that can win most games. If you can grab just 2 to 3 Special Players you can have winning seasons with good coaching.

Virginia's London is still grabbing Top Recruits in Virginia but that is hurting VT's Beamer more than anyone else, since London has taken 3 to 5 Top Recruits from Beamer each of the last 4 years and those recruits were ranked from #1 to #25 in the Nation. Yet, London is still struggling to win enough to go to a Bowl Game?

Pitt even with all the "PedersonLess Coaching Changes" still has done remarkable well in producing Quality Players and stars in the NFL as one Sports Writer wrote, "Most Underrated Program That Puts Quality Players In The NFL"!

Fitzgerald, Revis, McCoy, Donald, Clemmings, Boyd, and Conners have out produced much of Penn State's Players over the years and only 1 came outside of Pennsylvania?

What I like about Coach Pat is he wants and knows how to grows Complete Teams by combining many 2 and 3 Star Recruits and growing Recruits into Players to add to a complete team as seen at MSU. If Coach Pat can do the same at Pitt, Pitt will be just fine, especially if Coach Pat stays and provides the stability Pitt Football Program.

Penn State's Coach Franklin will have to prove he is can beat Michigan, MSU, and OSU with his Top recruits being turned into a Team, or the Penn State CULTure will turn on him like tyhey turned on O'Brien and others at Penn State. If Franklin cannot live up to the expectations he has sol Pennsylvania recruits on his pitch will grow old and stale quickly, especially if Coach Pat & Staff does what they expect to do at Pitt!

Franklin's Fate & Jay Paterno Stalking!

Above Photo Of Penn State CULT!

Meanwhile, Coach Pat & Staff primary mission is to continue to build Pitt Football Program on the Barry Alvarez's Wisconsin and Mark Dantonio's Michigan State models of growing the Recruits into great Players even if only recruiting from Top 25 to Top 50 Rankings.

So far, Coach Narduzzi is changing the Football culture at Pitt on Offense, Defense and Special Teams and Chris peal as well as others can observe, are all surprised of many right moves he has been making since his arrival and without an AD.

I am just very content to see Coach Pat Narduzzi just focused on doing this change and not worried whatsoever about what Players he has Pitt right now, but focused on making them better and glad to be at Pitt and that tells me, Pitt will become attractive to more recruits from everywhere, if Coach Pat continues on doing what he plans to at Pitt!

Nice analysis and thank you, but if Coach Pat does what he is does best by building Teams with Players he has, these numbers won't matter much!

This post was edited on 3/25 9:16 PM by CaptainSidneyReilly

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

What I don't understand about this mentality is if this is all true and PA high school football now sucks, why then do people threaten to commit suicide whenever we lose out on a prized local recruit?

If they are not that good to begin with then who cares? They will be easily replaced.

It seems to me that people pick and choose when to employ this argument. When we lose a kid, it is a catastrophe. When we get a kid, it is no big deal because the local talent is very overrated.

Honestly, when I see threads like this I just assume that the person making this argument doesn't even know what he is even arguing. I think everyone well understands that for Pitt to be successful they need to recruit at least the eastern seaboard and Ohio. Obviously, that starts with the WPIAL and the PIAA but nobody who has any idea what they're talking about thinks that's where it begins and ends.

I don't think anyone is under the delusion that the WPIAL is what it was back in the 1970s and 80s. Incidentally, even back then Pitt did not operate the way many people just assume they did. The Panthers were one of the first schools to go into talent-rich places like Florida, Georgia and Mississippi to bring that talent north. They were never the Fabulous 22 at the college level - well, at least not since the 50s or 60s.

Also, people do not realize that Pitt had never in its entire history kept all of the top local talent. They didn't keep all of the top local talent at home in the 70s and 80s when they were a national power and neither did they do it in the 20s and 30s when they were arguably the strongest program in the country.

Take a tour through Notre Dame's hall of fame and you will find that an incredible number of those players hailed from the state of Pennsylvania, and the majority of those players came from the WPIAL.

I just think this whole narrative is very misguided. With the way recruiting works now, and the way the game works now (everyone is on national television all the time) Pitt doesn't have to keep all the local talent at home and frankly Pennsylvania doesn't have to be among the strongest prep football states in the union. WVU has been extremely successful over the last decade plus and their state is among the worst prep football states in America.

Between Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Maryland - Pitt's natural recruiting area - there is plenty of talent here to build the foundation of a very successful college football program. Anyone who suggests otherwise doesn't know what he or she is talking about. Now, there is also a lot of competition for the talent in that region but that's true everywhere now because of how much the game has fundamentally changed on so many levels.

This post was edited on 3/25 10:06 PM by Dr. von Yinzer

 

[chethejet]

Football in general will see fewer and fewer kids playing. The trend is inescapable and PA with population stagnation will see less Div1 studs that the 50's to 80's period. The demographics in the ACC is what is most favorable in growing the football programs. Correct their are more than enough recruits between PA, Ohio and NJ to have a nice base, but the mid atlantic and Florida will fill out the classes. Michigan had to hire a big name coach to recruit away from Michigan. The program that is hurt most with the lack of big time numbers is PSU. They can't recruit nationally and Paterno benefited from PA football up until 2000. The record of PSU since then is at best OK an the stain of the scandal will now impact their image nationally is they are going after the top talents in competition with the top programs. Pitt has had many more recruits outside the PA base especially in Florida since the Major/JS years .

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

Originally posted by Dr. von Yinzer:
What I don't understand about this mentality is if this is all true and PA high school football now sucks, why then do people threaten to commit suicide whenever we lose out on a prized local recruit?

If they are not that good to begin with then who cares? They will be easily replaced.


Easy answer Doc. Because that is pretty much all we were really engaged in, save for maybe some scraps from Ohio. At least over the past few years. One thing apparent with Narduzzi, if you are a good player, he is recruiting you. Whether it is Blawnox, Brackenridge or Burlington, NC.


It seems to me that people pick and choose when to employ this argument. When we lose a kid, it is a catastrophe. When we get a kid, it is no big deal because the local talent is very overrated.

Honestly, when I see threads like this I just assume that the person making this argument doesn't even know what he is even arguing. I think everyone well understands that for Pitt to be successful they need to recruit at least the eastern seaboard and Ohio. Obviously, that starts with the WPIAL and the PIAA but nobody who has any idea what they're talking about thinks that's where it begins and ends.

There is no "argument" by me. Just a stunning realization backed up by facts. And the fact that this does not seem to be anomaly, that this is a firm trend. I just thought the data would be interesting let alone striking.


I don't think anyone is under the delusion that the WPIAL is what it was back in the 1970s and 80s. Incidentally, even back then Pitt did not operate the way many people just assume they did. The Panthers were one of the first schools to go into talent-rich places like Florida, Georgia and Mississippi to bring that talent north. They were never the Fabulous 22 at the college level - well, at least not since the 50s or 60s.

Pitt (and schools like tOSU and Michigan) were quick to jump on the SEC's slowness to recruit the African American athlete in those times. Also, when ESPN first came out, the cable system was mostly limited to urban areas, so Pitt often found itself on prime time games because it drew decent ratings, so we had an advantage.

Also, people do not realize that Pitt had never in its entire history kept all of the top local talent. They didn't keep all of the top local talent at home in the 70s and 80s when they were a national power and neither did they do it in the 20s and 30s when they were arguably the strongest program in the country.

Take a tour through Notre Dame's hall of fame and you will find that an incredible number of those players hailed from the state of Pennsylvania, and the majority of those players came from the WPIAL.

Nobody said we would or should.

I just think this whole narrative is very misguided. With the way recruiting works now, and the way the game works now (everyone is on national television all the time) Pitt doesn't have to keep all the local talent at home and frankly Pennsylvania doesn't have to be among the strongest prep football states in the union. WVU has been extremely successful over the last decade plus and their state is among the worst prep football states in America.

I think the term narrative has become to single most overused term on these forums. Calling something a narrative has become its own narrative.

Between Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Maryland - Pitt's natural recruiting area - there is plenty of talent here to build the foundation of a very successful college football program. Anyone who suggests otherwise doesn't know what he or she is talking about. Now, there is also a lot of competition for the talent in that region but that's true everywhere now because of how much the game has fundamentally changed on so many levels.


I think if you look at the states listed, besides the obvious entities in Florida, Texas and Cali, we see that the ACC footprint is amongst the best states per capita in producing talent. We have do better in the Mid Atlantic and Carolinas.

This post was edited on 3/25 10:06 PM by Dr. von Yinzer

 

[raleighpanther]

To Chet's point that football will see fewer and fewer kids playing football, that trend is already well underway. I heard a story on the radio two years ago about how the numbers of young kids signing up for Pop Warner football in an area in eastern Ohio was down dramatically from 2 years prior. They went from turning a lot of kids away to barely having enough players to field teams and run a league. I recently spoke with the guy who oversees the youth football leagues in Central NC and he said the same thing is happening here, and it gets worse every year.

All the early retirements from the NFL this spring will accelerate the trend. If a guy is walking away from a multi-million dollar contract because the sport is too damaging to his health, who is going to sign their kid up for this sport when there are so many other options?

Football is going to the way of boxing. It will mostly be a poor man's sport. I doubt that Clairton is fielding a lacrosse team, and football is very engrained in the culture, so football will continue on there for a long time. The same goes for a lot of SEC country and Texas.

But otherwise, the sport is already starting to die. In even moderately affluent areas, soccer, lacrosse and other emerging sports is what kids are playing. Telling another parent that you just signed your kid up for youth football will probably get you a silent judgmental stare. Almost like telling someone that you're ok with your kids smoking.

So to the broader point, football will continue in parts of PA, but not in others. But the decline in talent by region will be determined less by population stats than by where the sport is still considered to be a legitimate activity for kids, and where its not.

 

[WpialHSFB]

If you go by high school football player participation by state, PA ranks 11th (see attached). If you look at D1 players per participant, PA typically ranks in the 400-500 players per D1 signee (data is available with a google search). That is right where California and Texas rank. The Wpial typically has the most D1 signees in any area of PA (by a relatively wide margin).

The Wpial and state of PA is certainly not where they once were in the 70s-80s (wresting is unreal though!), but there is still solid talent - particularly at the top. I believe I've stated on this board before, but you could draw a circle around PA and bordering/key states (including DC/VA) and cover recruits that represent a very large portion of future NFL players. Pitt can't build a team with just Wpial and PA players, but Pitt can build a great team with a nice number of local and "regional" players while going after a select few national type players.

The sky isn't falling in the Wpial/PA, it's just not as fertile as it once was in the 70s-80s. Not new news, and should not prevent Pitt from being a top team.



This post was edited on 3/27 11:24 AM by WpialHSFB

Player Participation By State

 

[PSUriseANDfire]

Originally posted by chethejet:
The record of PSU since then is at best OK an the stain of the scandal will now impact their image nationally is they are going after the top talents in competition with the top programs.

Yeah top 15 class last year with anywhere from 11-14 four stars depending on the service and all five commits in the 16' class including two top 50 players in the country already for the class. Half the classes have offers from Bama and OSU is the direct competition for almost every recruit. The stain is killing PSU.

 

[Pittbaseball11]

Somebody clearly missed the memo that the Parkway Conference was the best in the whole wide world a few years ago.....

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

Originally posted by PSUriseANDfire:

Originally posted by chethejet:
The record of PSU since then is at best OK an the stain of the scandal will now impact their image nationally is they are going after the top talents in competition with the top programs.

Yeah top 15 class last year with anywhere from 11-14 four stars depending on the service and all five commits in the 16' class including two top 50 players in the country already for the class. Half the classes have offers from Bama and OSU is the direct competition for almost every recruit. The stain is killing PSU.

You were 7-6 last year.

 

[daminals76]

PA high school football isn't even average anymore...

As a whole it's turned into a complete joke.

 

[PantherRJ]

Pitt hasn't recruited PA east of Harrisburg, so I couldn't care less how good or bad PA football is.
As for foorball in western Pa, college football's defensive player of the year a year ago and the ACC's offensive player of the year this past season would say its not a complete joke.
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