Interesting article on economy hurting B1G...

Submitted by BlowGoo on
Without turning this into a political thread ( FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T BRING IN POLITICS!!), I just read an interesting article on the economy's effect on B1G recruiting: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/3/midwest-job-lossestaking… Basically, it suggests as long as the jobs decline in the midwest, we'll be fighting the SEC with our hands behind our backs.
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swan flu

January 3rd, 2014 at 8:20 AM ^

Certainly an interesting take, though I am skeptical.  Not of the population growth trends, those are undeniable.

 

But it's a stretch to make a bold claim like "the economy is causing the B1G to lag behind the SEC" without anything other than 2 disparate states and anecdotal evidence.

 

When it comes to articles in the STEM areas, "Peer review or it didn't happen."

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snarling wolverine

January 3rd, 2014 at 11:54 AM ^

I think you are overstating this.

Hoke may not have been a "top tier" guy but he'd been a head coach at two different stops before he came here.  Actually, he took the same route (position coach, MAC HC, MWC HC) as Meyer prior to Florida.  

Dantonio, Andersen, Ferentz, Kill, Fitzgerald, Wilson - I wouldn't consider any of those poor hires.   

The bigger problem with the B1G seems to be allocating resources beyond the head coach's salary.  Bielema was frustrated over the low pay his assistants got.  We've seen that MSU has just now started to pay competitive salaries for its assistants.  I'm guessing schools like Purdue and Illinois aren't forking out the money either.

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bronxblue

January 3rd, 2014 at 8:26 AM ^

It makes sense, but the southeast has had some employment issues as well. So it may be a factor, but I think institutional level differences are at least as important and macro economic ones.

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Indiana Blue

January 3rd, 2014 at 10:35 AM ^

go ahead and read the Opinion section on the linked story and tell me what their position is in regard to the United States economy and the US's position in the World's political and economic arena.  Opinion drives their content Bob, just like ALL news sources.   And BTW - CNN is not exactly known as the shining beacon of truth.

Congrats on biting into the cheese ...  

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sLideshowBob

January 3rd, 2014 at 3:05 PM ^

You think you might find opinions in the opinion section?   As I stated they don't always have a positive view of America.  The article in question has nothing to do this.  My point, which you clearly missed, is that just because it is from Al Jazera it it shouldn't be dismissed outright.  It's called critical thinking.  If you were to care to engage they do have some, not all, but some programing that is just newsand IMO is under represented in our overly senasationalist popular media outlets.  I chose CNN specifically because it claims to not have an opinion.  In my opinion it is lazy sensational crap.  They read tweets for Christs sake.  That is all. 

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03 Blue 07

January 3rd, 2014 at 8:45 PM ^

I'm glad you outed yourself as kind of. . . ignorant in this thread. Now I'll know not to pay attention to anything you have to say. Al-Jazeera America, by the way. Not Al-Jazeera; this wasn't translated from Arabic to English, for example. And yes, I realize one is a spinoff of the other. 

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ak47

January 3rd, 2014 at 12:57 PM ^

Did you notice that there is an al jazeera america and the entire news team is dedicated to issues in the united states? But yeah it has a foreign sounding name so they must not know anyting, those US based american news channels like fox and cnn are just always right about america.  While I'm at it i'm just going to disregard everything from the new york times or washington post written about michigan because they don't have michigan in their name.  Also screw the Economist because you know, fuck england.

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Rabbit21

January 3rd, 2014 at 8:48 AM ^

I think we're looking at a situation in which football is king in the south and the weather makes year round play much easier on the southern recruits.  Put in a natural tendency for kids to want to stay close to home and you have a recipe for SEC/Big 12/Pac 12 being stronger.  I don't think employment has much to do with it as the age of people migrating en masse for factory jobs is over.  The more mobile groups are the ones who are....... not likely to produce a lot of division 1 football prospects.  

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French West Indian

January 3rd, 2014 at 8:49 AM ^

...obviously those cheating SECer's have an advantage considering they been unofficially paying players.

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Avon Barksdale

January 3rd, 2014 at 8:53 AM ^

The loss of General Motors jobs in the north has had a huge impact on Midwest athletics. My family moved to TN, basically my entire school's and district's athletes were comprised of "northern brats" as we were called who had to relocate due to Michigan's economy (most played college ball in some sport in the south.)

Since I graduated from college down here because out of state tuition was too great, it's nearly impossible to get a job in Michigan having a MTSU (largest institution in Tennessee) degree and Tennessee address. I've tried at times for about fifteen months to relocate.

Now, if I don't find a job in Michigan and continue to work in Tennessee, my *future* kids would more than likely go through the same thing. It's a tough predicament, but most importantly the B1G just needs to win BIG games if they are going to incline this upcoming generation to migrate north to play sports.

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massblue

January 3rd, 2014 at 9:02 AM ^

population loss and changes in the economy. Michigan is 9th largest state with almost 9.9 million population. This is about the same as Georgia and more than almost any other southern state. I believe, there are still enough kids here in the Midwest to build competitive teams. Perhaps with the crappy weather that we have, one needs a much larger population to field competitive teams. By the Michigan has about 20% less population than Ohio and Pennsylvania. But we produce far fewer elite football players, I think. It must be the water.

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LSAClassOf2000

January 3rd, 2014 at 10:17 AM ^

Football Study Hall did an interesting study wherein they looked at how many Division I recruits come from various states on a per capita basis - HERE. This might be a cleaner view of looking at how talent-dense different states are generally. 

If looked at this way (in this case, X recruits per 100,000 population), per their results, Lousiana, Alabama and Florida actually make up the top three, followed by Georgia, Hawaii and Washington DC. Ohio is still in the Top 10 at #9 and Michigan is at 19th in this view, producing talent at a rate 0.81 times the average. 

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snarling wolverine

January 3rd, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^

By the Michigan has about 20% less population than Ohio and Pennsylvania. But we produce far fewer elite football players, I think.
I believe the most recent study found that Michigan produced more players than Pennsylvania (either overall or per capita, forget which it was). Ohio was ahead of both.

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tbeindit

January 3rd, 2014 at 9:19 AM ^

Overall, I don't think it's that hard of an argument to make that decreasing economic possbilities will mean smaller populations and less recruits.  My only problem with this argument is that top end schools like Ohio State still seem to have no problem getting recruits.  If this is possible, it puts a huge question mark on the validity of this argument.  

Now, I will say that it will have a huge impact on your lower end schools like an Illinois, Minnesota, and Purdue, but ultimately, I think it has much more to do with winning than anything else.  If the Big Ten starts having teams ranked consistently, wins big matchups, and wins bowl games, I think you will have no problem recruiting.

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cigol

January 3rd, 2014 at 9:28 AM ^

It's cold / cloudy for 6 of the 9 months of the school year.  The girls aren't as hot.  Football isn't nearly as king for the vast majority of the conference.  

Please spare me the academic BS.  Besides Northwestern, name me one school that rejects 4-5 star players who are clearinghouse eligible.  Note: Demar Dorsey couldn't even get into Louisville.

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Blarvey

January 3rd, 2014 at 9:34 AM ^

I think there is some truth to what the article says but it is not the only factor. Michigan used to get a lot of guys from the deep south, even into the 90s (Anthony Thomas, James Hall, Jarrett Irons, Chris Perry, Juaquin Feazell, Marcus Knight, Tommy Hendricks, etc.) and while they still get some from Texas and Florida, a lot of the top players are reluctant to leave the south.

For the kids in HS right now, the segregated football teams in the south forcing players to go to UM, Syracuse, MSU, and the like is a generation or two away. I imagine there was some reluctance by black players to go to places like Mississippi and Alabama even into the 70s and 80s that is pretty much gone now.

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MGoShoe

January 3rd, 2014 at 10:28 AM ^

...right that Michigan and every other B1G school save Northwestern eases its admission standards substantially for its football recruits. That said, based on anecdotes from recruits and student-athletes at Michigan, the recruiting pitch doesn't sugarcoat the rigor of Michigan athletics (even if S-As have tremendous access to enhanced academic support/facilities and are encouraged to find "realistic" majors). There's little doubt that recruits with minimal to no interest in academics are likely put off by Michigan's recruiting pitch emphasis on academics.

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Njia

January 3rd, 2014 at 6:06 PM ^

What they often say is that there is a "formula", you see, that assesses the likelihood of a student successfully completing a four-year degree. Many things go into the formula: GPA, test scores, socio-economic factors, pad level, speed, tackling in space, etc. Only after running a few Monte Carlo simulations and a multi-variate optimization algorithm is it possible to determine whether a 5-star recruit can be offered admission.

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DamnYankee

January 3rd, 2014 at 10:40 AM ^

Michigan had a number of kids from LA, TX & Big 12 country in the early to mid-nineties because LSU (Hallman & DiNardo years), OK (Gibbs, Schnellenberger, Blake years), & TX(McWilliams, Makovic years) were all having down periods AT THE SAME TIME.  There was roughly a 12 year period ('87 - '99) where all 3 schools were floundering simultaneously.  That all changed when LSU hired Saban (2000), OK hired Stoops (1999) and TX hired Brown (1998).  I would bet that many of those kids would have stayed south if OK, TX, & LSU were performing better on the field.

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PeterKlima

January 3rd, 2014 at 9:35 AM ^

It is not the lack of jobs that is concerning to Midwest football. It is the lack of manual labor jobs that has an effect. Football is mostly affected by those families because they are the ones who let their kids play the reputably dangerous sport as opposed to others.

1. The northeast United States is doing fine with respect to jobs generally, yet they rarely produce football talent. They also have little reliance on mfg jobs.

2. California is a good place for finding football talent, but that is just because it is so big. The growing areas of Northern California (with white collar jobs), lag far behind in producing talent. California lags significantly behind Texas and Florida for top talent, despite being much bigger than both (almost twice as many people as Florida).

The reality, that not many here are willing to admit, is that football is considered a barbaric sport in civilized areas. It is the rare exception to get kids from white collar backgrounds. It is a sport that people in physically demanding jobs don't seem as concerned about and one which, although dangerous, is better than the other two most viable options after HS -- go to work in a factory or join the armed forces.

So, as the Midwest attempts to diversify its economy and rely more heavily on engineering, financial services, etc. it will be STRENGTHENING its own economy while losing many manual labor families to places where companies can treat the working poor families with less cost -- and less help. (Texas, Alabama, etc.).

But, since there is so much money in the Midwest focused on sports, those kids will continue to head up there for better opportunity.

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User -not THAT user

January 3rd, 2014 at 10:35 AM ^

But

"The reality, that not many here are willing to admit, is that football is considered a barbaric sport in civilized areas. "

these "civilized areas" of which you speak certainly have no problems with their kids (boys and girls) playing ice hockey, a sport which issues a set of weapons to each of its participants.  Hockey is the one sport that Ivy League schools can compete with state schools on more-or-less equal footing...Yale won the men's championship last spring and about a third of the women on the 2014 US Women's Olympic Team are from Harvard.

If you want to argue the impact that economic income has on sports participation I'm in agreement with you to some degree, but saying that football is dying because blue bloods in certain regions don't want their progeny playing a violent game is pretty silly.

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