Recruiting Western Pennsylvania

[Dr Z]

Over the years Akron has been pretty successful recruiting in western PA. Coach has said many times that western PA is one of his focused recruiting areas. Today Jerry DiPaola of the Pittsburgh Tribune writes 5 star talent is becoming harder to find there.

“The glory days of the WPIAL are past,” Farrell said. “If you look at the cities that produce the most talent, Pittsburgh is not in the top 10 nationally. Miami won with Miami kids. USC won with southern California kids, but Pittsburgh is not that talent wealthy.”

This graphic is included in the article to demonstrate who recruits the area.

Uncommitted talent listed in the Trib article:

Tyler Boyd is a four star receiver yet to verbal. No Akron interest or offer.

Robert Foster is a five star receiver yet to verbal. No Akron interest or offer.

For reference, the PG list 22 top area talents: Post Gazette Fabulous 22

The Fabulous 22 is made up of the top players in the WPIAL and City League and a number of them go on to big things in college or play in the NFL. The team is picked by the Post-Gazette scholastic sports staff, with help from high school and college coaches.

The first Fabulous 22 team was picked 31 years ago. Some of the former Fabulous 22 picks who are in the NFL are Darrelle Revis (Aliquippa), Rob Gronkowski (Woodland Hills), Steve Breaston (Woodland Hills), Paul Posluszny (Hopewell), Sean Lee (Upper St. Clair), Justin King (Gateway) and Charlie Batch (Steel Valley).

[Captain Kangaroo]

“The glory days of the WPIAL are past,” Farrell said. “If you look at the cities that produce the most talent, Pittsburgh is not in the top 10 nationally. Miami won with Miami kids. USC won with southern California kids, but Pittsburgh is not that talent wealthy.”

The erosion of "northern" (not just Pittsburgh) talent is due to a lot of things.

* The population has shifted south...there simply aren't as many kids

* Kids don't play football in the north like they used to...when's the last time you saw a group of kids playing a pick up sandlot football game?

* Kids specialize in sports today. It used to be that every kid played football. Now, a lot of the better athletes play basketball or baseball year-round and skip football.

* Kids are "softer" today. Three decades of cable TV with 24/7 cartoons and cool video games has witnessed kids gravitating to the couch instead of the gridiron. Stick today's kids with 3 TV channels, no video games and cartoons only on Saturday mornings, and I guarantee youth sports would begin to rise again.

* The steel mills and rubber factories have closed, and the toughness inherent to kids from these hardscrabble backgrounds is lost.

* In Florida, you can play outdoor sports 24/7. Except in a hurricane. That's a huge training advantage.

There are lots of other reasons too. Feel free to add a couple, or poke holes in mine.

Obviously there is still a lot of good football talent in the north. But the above-listed reasons are why it's markedly less than it used to be.

[Zipmeister]

I find it ironic that Akron who is noted on their map as a major area recruiter (and the only school from the MAC) hasn't offered a single one of their fantastic 22 a scholarship, but Toledo and K S U have verbals from a member of this group.

[LZIp]

Pitt doesn't win with their kids because nobody wants to play for Pitt. They don't win with anybody. Look at PSU,OSU, most B1G teams, and other big name programs around the country and you will find programs winning with WPIAL talent.

[GP1]

Pitt doesn't win with their kids because nobody wants to play for Pitt. They don't win with anybody. Look at PSU,OSU, most B1G teams, and other big name programs around the country and you will find programs winning with WPIAL talent.

You are largely correct. Pitt is rarely anything better than average. Link Western PA high school football sheltered itself for many years in the WPIAL believing they were only worthy of playing each other. Few of them could win the Ohio high school championship and you all know how I feel about Ohio high school football right now.

PSU hid for years playing a cake schedule and once they got in the Big Ten, which isn't a very good conference in itself, they were exposed for not having much talent. I can't believe it is taking people this long to figure all of this out.

I still don't understand how people use the number of NFL players in a region as proof that the high school football in that region is really good. How do I know the "talent" in western PA doesn't make for very good college football? I watch football games that Penn State and Pitt play in. They are mostly full of average talent. Every once in a while, they get a run of a couple of good players that play in the NFL, but for the most part they are average. Terrible teams have great players sometimes...Remember Jason Taylor?

I'll say it for the 100th time this week. The beauty of Bowden is he understands just getting players from a region isn't enough. They have to be the best of those players if a team wants to be elite. Pitt and PSU aren't elite programs because they can't get the best of the best in PA, in large enough numbers, to go to their schools. It's either that or there aren't that many good players...or both.