Don't Mess With Texas!

[rojomojo]

Texas FBS programs are a combined 12-30 against out of state FBS programs this season...

Edited October 8, 2023 by rojomojo

[GrandGreen]

1 hour ago, rojomojo said:

Texas FBS programs are a combined 12-30 against out of state FBS programs this season...

Your point?

Texas has what 11 D! programs, plus supplies hundreds of players to out of state teams.

Yes, there are way too many D1 teams in Texas.  However, if you are commenting on the lack of quality of Texas players, than you are way off base. 

[rojomojo]

14 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

Your point?

Texas has what 11 D! programs, plus supplies hundreds of players to out of state teams.

Yes, there are way too many D1 teams in Texas.  However, if you are commenting on the lack of quality of Texas players, than you are way off base. 

I am saying that being stupid and expecting you can be different from every program in America and ONLY recruit in your home market is idiotic and will lead to failure every single time. 

The expectation that UNT can keep top local players home instead of P5 schools, your brain is stuck in 1980. 

 

Recruit out of state, start investing in Florida, the midwest, and Los Angeles area. 

[Venson]

20 minutes ago, rojomojo said:

I am saying that being stupid and expecting you can be different from every program in America and ONLY recruit in your home market is idiotic and will lead to failure every single time. 

The expectation that UNT can keep top local players home instead of P5 schools, your brain is stuck in 1980. 

 

Recruit out of state, start investing in Florida, the midwest, and Los Angeles area. 

I am pretty sure they do recruit out of state. Adaway and Ragsdale are proof of that and that's just naming a couple of guys from out of state although I could name more such as Maclin and Miner. Just because they want to concentrate on this 4 county area is not a bad strategy because there is a hotbed of talent here. You seem to be the only one who thinks we or any other Texas team doesn't recruit out of state talent when it is available.

[jtm0097]

2 hours ago, rojomojo said:

 

 

Recruit out of state, start investing in Florida, the midwest, and Los Angeles area. 

If you go to our recruiting forum on here, you will see that we have offers to a few JUCO guys from out of the state. I'm sure we will continue to add out of state guys from the transfer portal this year. You're not a very good troll. 

[Mean Green 93-98]

2 hours ago, rojomojo said:

I am saying that being stupid and expecting you can be different from every program in America and ONLY recruit in your home market is idiotic and will lead to failure every single time. 

Boy, you sure tore that straw man to pieces.  During the 30 years I have been following the program, North Texas has never recruited only in its home market.  But starting near home is a good place to start for most programs.

[UNTLifer]

5 hours ago, rojomojo said:

Texas FBS programs are a combined 12-30 against out of state FBS programs this season...

We have more D1 schools in the DFW market than Kansas has in its entire state.  Texas has more D1 talent coming out of high school than Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North & South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Arkansas, Missouri, etc. combined.  Go stir the pot elsewhere. 

[DentonLurker]

12 hours ago, rojomojo said:

I am saying that being stupid and expecting you can be different from every program in America and ONLY recruit in your home market is idiotic and will lead to failure every single time.

I have no idea who this argument is against. I’ve never heard a single coach make this argument.

12 hours ago, rojomojo said:

Recruit out of state, start investing in Florida, the midwest, and Los Angeles area.

I hate to break it to your argument against air here, but they already do recruit out of state.

[drex]

Apparently another slow day for Kokomo.

[keith]

I don't know why this is such a sensitive topic for everyone.  Recruiting the state of Texas has been as close to the singular focus of this program as you can get for as long as I can remember.  It is the one strategy we have never strayed from.  Now we have narrowed that focus to the DFW area.  This is not to say there isn't a ton of football talent both in Texas and the DFW area...there is.  However, we're fishing in the same pond as every other program in the state and pretty much every other P5 program in the country.  Why is suggesting we be more aggressive beyond our state borders outside the Overton window of GoMeanGreen.com?  

Perhaps it's a difference between recruiting and signing, but the numbers do not lie.  We are heavily focused on the state of Texas.  Here's a look at the current roster and the player's home state.  Out of 115, 94 or 82% hail from the great state of Texas.  The other 21 are sprinkled from a variety of states (and two countries!).  Some will point to 21 or 18% coming from non-Texas locales as evidence of our new found recruiting strategy.  Looking deeper, however, tells a different story.

First, I doubt, but I guess it's possible, we took recruiting trips to Australia and Canada, so I'm going to discount these as out-of-state recruiting efforts. That leaves 19 that came from some other state than Texas.  Thirteen of these out-of-state players came to us by way of transfer from another university (home state:  3 from California and one each from Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, 2 from Oklahoma and one from Pennsylvania).  Maybe we initially recruited these and they eventually found their way back, but it's more likely this was more a process of scanning the transfer portal.  To be fair, a lot of our TX players also came to us by way of transfer, but they are native Texans.   

That leaves 6 players currently on the roster that came to us from an out-of-state high school (one each from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Nevada, Ohio and Oklahoma).  Maybe we're recruiting these states and just not able to convince players to come to Denton.  

This is a valid topic of conversation, but for some reason is so out of bounds that we'd rather dismiss it out of hand rather than discuss it.  Maybe we will eventually be successful in this strategy, but the past evidence suggests it will be a constant challenge.  Or, maybe it doesn't matter at all in the age of the transfer portal where we focus our high school recruiting efforts.

[NT80]

15 hours ago, rojomojo said:

I am saying that being stupid

[Venson]

14 minutes ago, keith said:

I don't know why this is such a sensitive topic for everyone.  Recruiting the state of Texas has been as close to the singular focus of this program as you can get for as long as I can remember.  It is the one strategy we have never strayed from.  Now we have narrowed that focus to the DFW area.  This is not to say there isn't a ton of football talent both in Texas and the DFW area...there is.  However, we're fishing in the same pond as every other program in the state and pretty much every other P5 program in the country.  Why is suggesting we be more aggressive beyond our state borders outside the Overton window of GoMeanGreen.com?  

Perhaps it's a difference between recruiting and signing, but the numbers do not lie.  We are heavily focused on the state of Texas.  Here's a look at the current roster and the player's home state.  Out of 115, 94 or 82% hail from the great state of Texas.  The other 21 are sprinkled from a variety of states (and two countries!).  Some will point to 21 or 18% coming from non-Texas locales as evidence of our new found recruiting strategy.  Looking deeper, however, tells a different story.

First, I doubt, but I guess it's possible, we took recruiting trips to Australia and Canada, so I'm going to discount these as out-of-state recruiting efforts. That leaves 19 that came from some other state than Texas.  Thirteen of these out-of-state players came to us by way of transfer from another university (home state:  3 from California and one each from Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, 2 from Oklahoma and one from Pennsylvania).  Maybe we initially recruited these and they eventually found their way back, but it's more likely this was more a process of scanning the transfer portal.  To be fair, a lot of our TX players also came to us by way of transfer, but they are native Texans.   

That leaves 6 players currently on the roster that came to us from an out-of-state high school (one each from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Nevada, Ohio and Oklahoma).  Maybe we're recruiting these states and just not able to convince players to come to Denton.  

This is a valid topic of conversation, but for some reason is so out of bounds that we'd rather dismiss it out of hand rather than discuss it.  Maybe we will eventually be successful in this strategy, but the past evidence suggests it will be a constant challenge.  Or, maybe it doesn't matter at all in the age of the transfer portal where we focus our high school recruiting efforts.

I hear what you are saying, but I think every other college does about the same. They recruit their local kids and get out of state kids when they can. It's a lot harder to recruit a kid out of state where he grew up rooting for one of the states schools. For instance to convince a Florida kid to not want to go to FL, FL State, or Miami is not an easy task. His family is there. I am sure if you do the same diligence to any roster outside of Texas, you would get really close to the same numbers. Maybe the only outliers would be places so close to another state that the drive for family would not be that bad. Oklahoma comes to mind there. The drive from DFW to Norman is not that bad so of course they will get a lot of players from here. We are not a P5 program with an established winning program so convincing a kid to leave OH, GA, FL, CA, AL, etc to come play for North Texas is going to be a tall order. You have to convince your hometown kids to stay first like Miami did in the early to mid 80s and that built their program. Now, they can probably get kids from all over, but first it starts at home. 

[rojomojo]

Alright guys, here's why I care so deeply about this... Texas has the best high school football in America. There's no denying that and it clearly gives UNT a boost in momentum being located in such a prime market, however when you're not as developed as programs such as UT, A&M, or even SMU, it makes it really difficult to attract quality talent in your own state

Does that mean UNT can't get a majority of its talent from Texas? NO! However being limited to what you see across the street will hinder UNT's ability to grow and out pace fellow instate rivals. 

When you recruit in new markets, many athletes first impression of UNT is our amazing football facilities and NOT the mentality that it's "everybody's second choice"

I still feel like we could be utilizing the transfer portal much more effectively in this regard. Texas State is a great example of this

[HoustonEagle]

Recruiting heavily out of state is expensive.  We are broke. End of story.


By the way that is the answer for about every problem the program has.  Fix that or understand we will always be mediocre.  

[keith]

38 minutes ago, Venson said:

I hear what you are saying, but I think every other college does about the same. They recruit their local kids and get out of state kids when they can. It's a lot harder to recruit a kid out of state where he grew up rooting for one of the states schools. For instance to convince a Florida kid to not want to go to FL, FL State, or Miami is not an easy task. His family is there. I am sure if you do the same diligence to any roster outside of Texas, you would get really close to the same numbers. Maybe the only outliers would be places so close to another state that the drive for family would not be that bad. Oklahoma comes to mind there. The drive from DFW to Norman is not that bad so of course they will get a lot of players from here. We are not a P5 program with an established winning program so convincing a kid to leave OH, GA, FL, CA, AL, etc to come play for North Texas is going to be a tall order. You have to convince your hometown kids to stay first like Miami did in the early to mid 80s and that built their program. Now, they can probably get kids from all over, but first it starts at home. 

We've been at this strategy for at least 45 years and probably longer.  How much more time should we give it?

It's hard to understand what motivates 17 and 18 year old brains (I'm talking about football and being recruited here people, nothing else!!).  Some may not want to go to the "local" university and see being recruited to play football in another state (and Texas for that matter) as a badge of honor.  

We always tout other schools wanting to dip into the Texas market for recruiting as a benefit to scheduling us.  Did/do we ever take advantage of playing in Florida or other states with football talent?

All I have ever heard during a coaching change is Texas ties, Texas ties, Texas ties...ad nauseam, as if that is the single most important attribute in hiring a coach.  Sometimes I feel like our fanbase is OK with mediocre success as long as the coach has Texas ties.  We are collectively very myopic on this IMHO. 

[SilverEagle]

1 hour ago, HoustonEagle said:

Recruiting heavily out of state is expensive.  We are broke. End of story.


By the way that is the answer for about every problem the program has.  Fix that or understand we will always be mediocre.  

My perception of how things are today is that most recruitment is done electronically. I could be wrong but, I don't think you fly/drive out to make the initial contact with recruits any longer.......especially in the case of a recruit from out of state. To me, relationships with HS coaches and trusting their assessment of players, is a big plus.  Also, I tend to think that Zoom has the potential to be somewhat of an equalizer in recruiting. 

[Venson]

46 minutes ago, keith said:

We've been at this strategy for at least 45 years and probably longer.  How much more time should we give it?

It's hard to understand what motivates 17 and 18 year old brains (I'm talking about football and being recruited here people, nothing else!!).  Some may not want to go to the "local" university and see being recruited to play football in another state (and Texas for that matter) as a badge of honor.  

We always tout other schools wanting to dip into the Texas market for recruiting as a benefit to scheduling us.  Did/do we ever take advantage of playing in Florida or other states with football talent?

All I have ever heard during a coaching change is Texas ties, Texas ties, Texas ties...ad nauseam, as if that is the single most important attribute in hiring a coach.  Sometimes I feel like our fanbase is OK with mediocre success as long as the coach has Texas ties.  We are collectively very myopic on this IMHO. 

We do talk about people wanting to come into the Texas market because we are here in Texas. However, we have been going into the FL market for at least the last 10 years playing FAU and FIU, we have even played at FL (Mason Fine's freshman year), but it hasn't moved the needle in FL at all. I am not discounting your opinions at all. In fact, I rather like it because it shows we are passionate about NT football. We just have differing opinions on what to do to make it more relevant and to gain sustained success. I just happen to believe if you can't be successful recruiting in your own state, it's going to be exponentially harder to convince out of state kids to come here.

[aprice]

18 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

Your point?

Texas has what 11 D! programs, plus supplies hundreds of players to out of state teams.

Yes, there are way too many D1 teams in Texas.  However, if you are commenting on the lack of quality of Texas players, than you are way off base. 

Per capita, I bet Texas isn't in the top 10 of most FBS teams.  Alabama has 4, Wyoming at 1, and Oregon at 2 all have more FBS schools per capita than TX, and that's just off the top of my head without even trying hard.

 

If we're talking about P5 schools per capita, TX is probably in the bottom 5

Edited October 9, 2023 by aprice

[NT93]

1 hour ago, Venson said:

I just happen to believe if you can't be successful recruiting in your own state, it's going to be exponentially harder to convince out of state kids to come here.

This

[rojomojo]

All I am saying is if we but even just a bit more effort in recruiting in different markets, it would help us not panic every time we have a homegrown dude decommit for an out of state program.

Just send a few dudes to some football camps around Florida and LA... Sometime's that's all it takes to expand your brand 

[rojomojo]

2 hours ago, SilverEagle said:

My perception of how things are today is that most recruitment is done electronically. I could be wrong but, I don't think you fly/drive out to make the initial contact with recruits any longer.......especially in the case of a recruit from out of state. To me, relationships with HS coaches and trusting their assessment of players, is a big plus.  Also, I tend to think that Zoom has the potential to be somewhat of an equalizer in recruiting. 

TONS of it is done over the internet with twitter and highlight reels.