http://freep.com/article/20090205/SPORTS18/90205050/Kudos+to+Dantonio+f…
The Freep's Mike Brudenell gives MSU the advantage in recruiting this year, because Dantonio's 2009 class is "Made in Michigan."
He goes on to describe how Dantonio recruits:
"He's filling his needs with kids who really want to play, know something about the history of the school and represent the region. "
It is logic like this why newspapers are struggling.
How does Brudenell know that UofM's players are any less hungry to play football or know anything less about their school's football history? A lot of out of state recruits say that they were a UofM fan growing up and thus would know traditions of the school. Michigan has a big time program and people outside of our state borders know many of the traditions and history behind the program. This isn't MSU. So 2 of 3 of his reasons have been debunked as pure assumptions with no evidence provided by him to back it up.
This only leaves his idea that MSU has a better class, because MSU has kids who represent the region.
Perhaps CMU has a better class than UofM too, since it has more in state kids that are hungry, know the history, and are homegrown. Maybe we could trade classes with CMU so we can compete against MSU!
Why should we care what states our players come from as long as we get some Michigan players when we need to? Should Rodriquez get the kids who fit his system or try and get a roster with a kid from every single one of the 83 counties in Michigan to best represent our lovely state? Ultimately, they all represent their school when they commit. How many of you were disappointed when a Wolverine from Ohio won the Heisman? My guess is only bitter rivals would answer that they were. Michigan is not a traditionally talent rich state, we may have to head out of state at times to get a championsip roster with our system.
He goes on to say:
"For me, it's quite simple. I’d rather watch a kid from Ypsi score a touchdown over someone from West Palm Beach. How about you?"
No, I would rather watch a UofM player score a touchdown than someone from another team. And perhaps UofM can score more touchdowns with getting the best talent for the system, regardless of what state they are from.
I wonder if this guy would applaud MSU when Daughtery got NCAA violations in order to entice southerners to come up north and play in the late 50's and early 60's.
Finally he is misleading about where the recruiting classes finished ranked nationally. He says: "Rivals.com ranks MSU’s class of 2009 16th in the nation, while it rates U-M seventh. Tom Lemming (CBS College Sports) ranks U-M 10th, while Tom Luginbill (Scouts Inc./ESPN) has MSU at the same spot." That implies that MSU is 10th in the ESPN's Luginbill's rankings. MSU is not ranked at all, he only ranks the top-25.
This illogical article isn't even suited for a high school newspaper. It would make as much sense for me to praise UofM's class as better than MSU's, merely because we bring in more out of state people to a state that has a declining population. Sure there can be benefits to recruiting your local area, but this guy fails to mention any.
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