USF considered a 'peasant' of college football??

[slick1ru2]

in light of the fact that the best football players play in the shadow of usf and usf hasnt capitalized on that is more than enough evidence of our failure as a program

it is shocking that usf hasnt dominated the area in recruiting

neither leavitt or holtz were good salesmen

Pst....there are great players in Texas, California, Oklahoma, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc.. Florida got a lot of its rep from Lee Corso's quip about it being the "speed state". Yes, many great players are in Florida. Much of that has to do with the large population of the state though vs something in the water.

They've been giving out Heisman trophies since the 30s and there has only been a half dozen from Florida schools. Most likely there are more Floridians than that who have them, but lots of other states produce great football players. Looking at the past 10 teams, Oklahoma and California are where the most winners have come from, only Tebow was from Florida.

Edited July 14, 2012 by slick1ru2

[Gismo]

Maybe we'd have been classified differently had we won two big east titles. We've had the talent to do it but have failed.

[Triple B]

Maybe we'd have been classified differently had we won two big east titles.

Wouldn't have made a bit of difference .... unless, possibly, we had turned those into two BIG wins over Kings/Barons in the BCS bowls.

[Capone24]

You can't compare Florida's High School Football talent based on how many have won the Heisman. Florida hasn't really been able to flourish in football until schools were desegregated which I believe was in the late 60's(we had teams compete for the mythical national title but it usually was the same school, Coral Gables). Before the 50's-60's it was a predomiately white sport and our best athletes were working in the cane fields instead of going to school. If you broke down the percentage of players Florida sends to D-1A schools against the state's population we still would be in the top three. I'm not sure if this is still true but we had the most players from one high school and County that are active players in the NFL(Glades Central High was along with Broward County).

Speed is usually the one trait that seperates Florida players from the rest of the country, just like Nebraska/Wisconsin(Midwest states in general) produce big OL, that attribute is usually what seperates our players. PA and OH aren't like they used to be where they had big industrial cities with a large amount of their population being blue collar middle class Americans. Texas and Cali both produce top notch players as well but the other states are GA, AL and LA in terms of top tier athletes. Ohio and PA are still big recruiting areas but they also have large populations compared to the three previously mentioned states. Schnelly proved it in the early 80's that if you can keep the local talent home you can compete for a National title in Florida.

[Reliable Source]

BTW Rivals top 100 has this many players and positions from Midwestern states in 2012. DT-2, OL-1 WR-2 QB-1, OLB-1. Now that includes everything from IL west to MT south to OK and east to the mighty MS.Not really trying to be argumentative, but I wanted to see if that "corn-fed" theory really held up. Oh and the top WR recruit in the Nation, Springfield, MO. Oh and by far, CA leads the pack for OL s in the Top 100 followed closely by WA and TX.

http://rivals.yahoo....e7rKsQ.cnl4uZB4

Edited July 15, 2012 by Bullwinkle

[slick1ru2]

You can't compare Florida's High School Football talent based on how many have won the Heisman. Florida hasn't really been able to flourish in football until schools were desegregated which I believe was in the late 60's(we had teams compete for the mythical national title but it usually was the same school, Coral Gables). Before the 50's-60's it was a predomiately white sport and our best athletes were working in the cane fields instead of going to school. If you broke down the percentage of players Florida sends to D-1A schools against the state's population we still would be in the top three. I'm not sure if this is still true but we had the most players from one high school and County that are active players in the NFL(Glades Central High was along with Broward County).

Speed is usually the one trait that seperates Florida players from the rest of the country, just like Nebraska/Wisconsin(Midwest states in general) produce big OL, that attribute is usually what seperates our players. PA and OH aren't like they used to be where they had big industrial cities with a large amount of their population being blue collar middle class Americans. Texas and Cali both produce top notch players as well but the other states are GA, AL and LA in terms of top tier athletes. Ohio and PA are still big recruiting areas but they also have large populations compared to the three previously mentioned states. Schnelly proved it in the early 80's that if you can keep the local talent home you can compete for a National title in Florida.

I only put up the past decade of Heisman. Corso came up with the "Speed State" but other states have players just as fast or faster. Florida has a huge population, much of it recently (past 40 years) transplanted from other states. DC/Maryland is another hotbed of football talent. Torrey Smith, Shawne Merriman, Vernon Davis, Darrius Heyward-Bey all from Maryland and extremely fast.