(Special thanks to my buddy and former LSU roommate, Charlie Morton, for leading me to this story. For the record Charlie is a graduate of LSU, Alabama, USC, and is now enrolled in law school at Nebraska. One has to wonder if Nebraska might have a national championship on the way now that Charlie Morton is there.)
Statistics will show that most high school players pick where they will play college football based on one overriding factor: proximity to their home. It should not surprise us that most young men decide to play football close to where they have played their final years of high school football. They are likely to have heard more about a college close to their hometown in the local media and from word of mouth. Aside from having the safety net of mom and dad close by, Mom and dad and friends from high school will likely be more able to attend their college games at a college closer to home.
But while the "proximity to home" may be a deciding factor for many college football players, there are some players who want to play with and against the best players in the country. That draws those players to major conferences and often to the dominant national football conference: the SEC.
The elite players drawn to the SEC are likely then faced with the question of which SEC school will give them the best chance of having a future in the NFL. Those are the players that every NCAA team wants to attract.
My best friend, Charlie Morton, recently sent me a link to pro-football-reference.com because he thought I might find this site's collection of statistics interesting. Two facts that I discovered about LSU were really interesting.
Fact 1: LSU is tied with Miami and Texas for #1 for the most active players currently playing in the NFL. I double checked this fact by cross referencing an ESPN set of data that is also available online. ESPN has these LSU players listed and it is quite an impressive list.
The other SEC teams fell on the pro-football-reference list of "active NFL players" as follows:
Georgia #6, Tennessee #9, Florida #10, Auburn #11, Alabama #21, Ole Miss #30, South Carolina #33, Miss. State #37, Vanderbilt #64, and Kentucky #72.
Fact 2: LSU ranks second among SEC schools for most players to ever play in the NFL, past or present. The SEC school with the highest total number of players to ever make it on an NFL roster is Tennessee. The rest of the SEC order after LSU is: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Ole Miss., Kentucky, Miss. State, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt.
I will not go through the whole list but, LSU also ranks only second to Alabama among SEC schools with players that went on the become members of the NFL Hall of Fame. In this category LSU is a distant second but still, second.
LSU recruits the best players from across the nation and its roster is reflective of that, including some of the best players from Florida, Texas, and Georgia. But, LSU's roster is still dominated by great home grown talent from Louisiana.
If you are a high school player from Louisiana with NFL potential, you are more likely going to want to play for LSU. If you are a high school player that feels strongly that he has NFL potential and you want to play with the best in the SEC, you should strongly considering playing at LSU.
12 comments:
great information you dug up. i'm ready to play lsu trivia after reading your blog. did anyone watch the AL spring game. the announcers were laughing at lsu's quarterback situation, asking if Alabama could give us one of their backups to play fair. a-holes. god i hope we beat the gumps this year!
Saban is just proof that Bama is in fact, nothing special. When he was at LSU, he brought back a program long dead, and won it all, then set up the next three years after he left.
He goes to Bama, brings back a long dead program, and wins it all. If you want to take solice in any of this, its this. Bama didnt win the title due to some inherent superiority as they like to claim. In their eyes, LSU is a wanna-bee saying 'what about me' all the time, while they swagger up to the bar causing all the toughs to move out the way just by their presence.
But the fact is, without Bryant, Bama was awfully ordinary. Their one MNC in 91 led to probation. Just like UF in the 80's. LSU has the good sense to finally get ahead of the curve and hires a great coach. Wow, we can win it all too!! Who would have thought (LOL).
So, fortunes of war, Saban leaves and goes to Bama. NOT because Bama was better, like Tubberville leaving OM for Auburn, but because LSU wouldnt take him back after his stint in the NFL. So, he steps down and goes to Bama. Facts.
Now, just like at LSU, he's winning at Bama. Only, he doesnt have to play UF every year, he gets Tennessee. By every stretch, Bama has it easier than LSU, and a coach winning there, has an easier ride than in BR.
So, when Bama fan recoils you with his arrogance. Remember, its not inate superiority, its just the coach. When he leaves, they'll descend back to mediocrity, just like where they were before he got there. Only it'll be funnier watching them wonder why.
Its the coach, not the place. Its never the place. Only the live in the moment sorts get very full of themselves pulling for their place and forget that when the coach is putting them on the map.
This makes me proud to be an LSU fan and to be a native of the great state of Louisiana! Can't wait for those Bama gumps to try to tell me how great of a football tradition they have.
Boys do not think like men,because Alabama was always a great State to recruit great southern football payers from...All you need to do,is to read the history of SEC football, The place does matter,and you are all wet.
Johnny come lately,trying to say something smart.
Bama has been a mediocre program when Bryant or Saban wasnt their coach, and after Saban moves on, Bama will return to mediocrity again.
Its not a hope, its simply the pattern. Bama went through Perkins et al while getting on probation to win a title. Bryant had a good run, in a time when he could get away with the way he ran his 'program'. But since him, what?
All the entitlement in Birmingham wont really change the fact that without a really good coach, its just 'Alabama'. And whats the big deal about that?
Twenty five years show it to be a place for cheaters, scandal, and mediocrity. Not that LSU has much room to talk, except we havent cheated like Bama.
Its the coach, and what better proof is there than Saban.
He's winning at Bama, what a shock, he won at LSU, and at Michigan St. once it got off the probation he inhereted.
Good luck, after a year or two Bama can spend the next 25 yrs trying to get a coach that was one of 'Nicks boys'.
Just too good to make up.
Check your facts in the five years Nicky was at Mich. St. he only had one year with more than 7wins.
His last year at MSU he was 10-1, check your own facts. Fact is, he took over a program on probation and spent two yrs with scholarship limitations and still when he left had the team 5th ranked in the nation and had beaten Michigan.
So at the end of his four year building program, he had MSU 5th ranked in the nation and beating intra-state rival Michigan.
Now maybe you have a coach that can walk into a horrible situation and win it all, the first year. Name please.
But for a guy to work four yrs making a program a winner, from nothing or less, probation, to then say, 'he had bad years when he got there', without looking at what was built by the time he left, well, thats just not very bright. 'Bout like saying Miles has accomplished more than Saban did at LSU. One guy gets you up to the mountain top, and the other guy rides you back down. But its O.K., we're still pretty high, just dont look at how high we used to be, or how fast we're descending.
Yep, you got me, Saban only had one winning year at MSU, his last and he had them ranked 5th in the nation. What in the world was he doing the other three years. Must have been learning how to coach.
Sounds like somebody needs to check THEIR facts.
First LSU improved from two years ago to last year. 2005 was an off year for recruiting makes sense.
No coach in the SEC would get 5 years to build a program. Four years of 6-6, 6-5, 7-5 would not keep an SEC coach around. An 8-5 and a 9-4 year and people have LSU riding down the mountain. LOL
What do you think tiger fans,well LSU run faster on the Atlanta Dome football field?
I think NC has a real problem!!
Down the Mountain has a lot more to do with who the 4 and 5 losses were to than the 8 and nine wins.
Everyone knows that in the 12 game season, that the rent a wins are just an open date with revenue. Playing Vanderbilt and MSU is little more than that as well. Now playing UNC and WV is a step up, but we didnt play them the past two seasons. It was Tulane and Appalachian St. and their ilk. So two more non-conference walk-overs. Thats four walk overs and two conference walk overs.
We're down to six competitive games. Bama, Auburn, Ark., OM, UF and arguably U. SC or UGA.
So, in those two years, how'd we do against the competition... 0-2 against Ole Miss, UF, and UA. Yes, thats right 0-2 against OM. So, thats three of your real games that are what matter... and the result is a fast ride down that mountain. Add to that, lose to a crummy Penn St., or Lose to Ark., and whats on your hands?
A team with about six real games, that loses typically four or five of them the past two years. Will this year be different? Now that is the question, isn't it.
Realistically, is Miles going to do things different? Or with supposedly better talent is he more likely to believe that he can now succeed at what he's been unsuccefully been trying to do the past couple yrs. You can decide.
But losing half the games that matter, and showing no indication of being more likely to do anything other than continue to 'run da damn ball', (gotta love those big-cat practices!!), where anyone thinks that anything different will happen this year in terms of game plan, its just hard to see.
But maybe you're right. Maybe its OK to lose to Bama, UF, OM, and a couple others each year. No worries, right?
You know that is true about the rent-a-wins. Oh wait didn't St. Nick lose to UAB when he was the Tigers hc? and didn't he lose to ULM two years ago with that now invincible Tide Team? Guess we can forgive and forget those but not loses to NC Alabama in the fourth quarter and Florida by 10 points or Penn State by 2 points.
Its not too hard to forgive a coach, even Saban, that in his first year got the team to play with pride, and fight the whole game, for the first time in years. Its also easy to forgive a guy that wins games at home against good teams in his first year (Tennessee, Mississippi St - yes, in 2000, they actually were a good team).
As for forgiving and forgetting, thats your call really. If its O.K. with you that LSU loses to UF, Alabama, and Ole Miss, and Penn St. on more or less routine basis', then go for it.
But forgiving a coach in his first year, when he inherited a disheveled group of about 65 scholarship players, and a qb with an attitude that thinks he gets to make up plays on the last drive of the game... or were you too young to remember Josh Booty... well, thats just not that difficult to do.
Especially when you can see that what the guy is doing is and will work. Losing to UAB, well, that led to the rise of Rohan Davey, now didn't. It also led to Josh Booty going pro because he knew he was going to be benched if he came back.
Forgive a first year coach for dealing with the cr*p left by the predecessor? That seems only fair.
On the other hand, fogiving a coach for heading back down the mountain, knock yourself out.
Miles isnt naval lent. He's a good coach, he really is. Lets see if he can prove it this year with his own players. We can probably all agree on that.
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