Where are all the Arizona HS kids?  It doesn't seem like enough emphasis has been placed on owning the state from Graham's staff...

Chans Cox #	LB	FR	6-3	230	Lakeside, Ariz./Blue Ridge HS
Kisima Jagne #	DL	FR	6-5	265	Chandler, Ariz./Chandler HS
Grant Martinez	TE	FR	6-5	210	Scottsdale, Ariz./Notre Dame Prep
Christian Westerman #%	OL	RS SO*	6-4	303	Chandler, Ariz./Hamilton HS/Auburn

thats a pretty solid bunch

I've said this before--we are drilling a dry hole here to some extent. It's a good sign of mental health that a kid wants to get away from home for his college education. Basically, our target market is the kid that has always dreamed about wearing "the colors". It's not a large group if you think about it. Just about every AZ kid has visited CA and enjoyed the beaches and the cooler summers, and it's just a short flight away. Throw in the fact that our CA rivals are regarded as having better academics and our job becomes even more difficult.

Graham is emphasizing in-state recruiting... just like Erickson did... and just like Koetter did...

The results speak for themselves

baalforhire wrote: I've said this before--we are drilling a dry hole here to some extent. It's a good sign of mental health that a kid wants to get away from home for his college education. Basically, our target market is the kid that has always dreamed about wearing "the colors". It's not a large group if you think about it. Just about every AZ kid has visited CA and enjoyed the beaches and the cooler summers, and it's just a short flight away. Throw in the fact that our CA rivals are regarded as having better academics and our job becomes even more difficult.

Excuses excuses.

justinc32 wrote: Where are all the Arizona HS kids?  It doesn't seem like enough emphasis has been placed on owning the state from Graham's staff...

Wrong.  The emphasis is there, hovever currently the results are not.  CTG does acknowledge the need to own AZ as best as possible, but remember the staff's been here a little over a year & other staffs have recruited AZ's top prospects for 2+ cycles.  Graham needs time to build local relationships and remove the stigma associated with him as a job jumper before we keep more at home than we lose.  Gotta keep winning too.

TheAntiCrow wrote:

baalforhire wrote: I've said this before--we are drilling a dry hole here to some extent. It's a good sign of mental health that a kid wants to get away from home for his college education. Basically, our target market is the kid that has always dreamed about wearing "the colors". It's not a large group if you think about it. Just about every AZ kid has visited CA and enjoyed the beaches and the cooler summers, and it's just a short flight away. Throw in the fact that our CA rivals are regarded as having better academics and our job becomes even more difficult.

Excuses excuses.

CAN YOU PLEASE STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE!!!!!!!

JewishSD1996 wrote:

TheAntiCrow wrote:

baalforhire wrote: I've said this before--we are drilling a dry hole here to some extent. It's a good sign of mental health that a kid wants to get away from home for his college education. Basically, our target market is the kid that has always dreamed about wearing "the colors". It's not a large group if you think about it. Just about every AZ kid has visited CA and enjoyed the beaches and the cooler summers, and it's just a short flight away. Throw in the fact that our CA rivals are regarded as having better academics and our job becomes even more difficult.

Excuses excuses.

CAN YOU PLEASE STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE!!!!!!!

Can ASU stop being so mediocre?

TheAntiCrow wrote:

JewishSD1996 wrote:

TheAntiCrow wrote:

baalforhire wrote: I've said this before--we are drilling a dry hole here to some extent. It's a good sign of mental health that a kid wants to get away from home for his college education. Basically, our target market is the kid that has always dreamed about wearing "the colors". It's not a large group if you think about it. Just about every AZ kid has visited CA and enjoyed the beaches and the cooler summers, and it's just a short flight away. Throw in the fact that our CA rivals are regarded as having better academics and our job becomes even more difficult.

Excuses excuses.

CAN YOU PLEASE STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE!!!!!!!

Can ASU stop being so mediocre?

we might have the top AZ player from last year (and possibly the highest ranked AZ player in our history) via Westerman and this year's top AZ player with Chans Cox - and somehow we're headed towards disaster?

um, reality check.

While our in-state recruiting certainly needs improvement, ASU has done a much better job than recruiting AZ kids than UA.  I know comparing ourselves to UA is setting a very low standard, but it's something positive, right? 

Perhaps the players in state do not match up to the talent in Texas and California; because they are local does not mean we are obligated to recruit them and they are not obligated to stay home.  I grew up in Tennessee and most if not all of my friends that played any level went out of state.  Paid experience!  Cash or not, you figure a kid is making $250,000 to play football by receiving a paid education.  If someone offered to send you on a trip to anywhere, with a paid education, would you stay home?  I doubt it, unless you love the university.  I grew up near Vanderbilt, David Lipscomb, Belmont, and 2.5 hours from Tennessee-Knoxville and Memphis, never thought to stay home!!  Run boy run!!  I never loved the U's around me... My son, here in MN, dreams of going to ASU, would not consider the Gophers, Duluth, Mankato, St. Thomas, St. Johns, etc...  does that make him a traitor? 

Frankly, you people suck for the way you rail on kids... based on some stories I've seen recently and some of the stuff on ESPN today, some kids need to get away from home.  Some fans and parents are just nuts....

I don't want to be negative.  I like a lot of the principles that Graham instilled in this first year, and we saw results, namely in drastically improved discipline.  However, 3 AZ HS kids is not going to get it done.  With increasing population and better quality of HS football in AZ, we should be getting a much higher conversion rate on the best kids in the state.  For those of us that have followed the program for more than a few years, the best teams that ASU has put out have had a great foundation of AZ kids.  I just don't believe that our program has the national profile to compete for kids outside of our geographic region on a consistent basis. If we can't get the best kids in the state to stay in AZ, I don't see us getting enough talent from outside our region to compete consistently for the Pac-12 championship and beyond... You can criticize my skepticism, but I think this same issue has haunted us over the last 10 years or so.

justinc32 wrote: Where are all the Arizona HS kids?  It doesn't seem like enough emphasis has been placed on owning the state from Graham's staff...

A lot of AZ HS kids want to get out of state.  Not sure why this is sooooo difficult for some of you people to understand. 

Get over it and accept those that want to stay and represent ASU.

I agree to a point with the basic premise. ASU does have to find some way wrangle the state's top talent. However what you guys don't understand is how easy it is to recruit the valley for out-of-state schools. Any PAC-12 staff could set up camp in the valley and hit 50 schools in a few days because they're all in such close proximity. Considering there are only about 20 "big-time" recruits(and that's being a little generous) in AZ and often times they play on the same team, you can see how easy it is for a school like UCLA, USC, etc. that are a 45 minute flight away to come here and basically put roughly the same recruiting output (on those elite players) as the hometown program. You can't do that in California, even in LA. It's just not as easy. UCLA's AC that is assigned to recruiting this area is going to have a much easier time being exposed to these athletes than the ASU guy assigned to SoCal will have. Because there are more players, schools, less proximity, etc. Therefore when it comes to the elite guys in the state, it's a tough battle for ASU when every single one of those top 10 guys has a dozen or more offers from very impressive programs.

In states like FLA, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, etc. not only do you have a larger talent pool to pull from, but you have an advantage in being able to hit certain schools more frequently than your counterparts simply due to geography, or offering great talents from smaller schools that other big programs will overlook. How many times do you see our kids being offered by out-of-state coaches before ASU does? Its because our elite guys are well-known because they've already been identified by other staffs in precious recruiting cycles, making the same east-valley trip to Chap, Sag, Hamilton, Chandler, Marcos, Mountain Pointe, Brophy, etc . Why do you think Graham had an easier time with Cox than he did with Willis, even though Willis was 5 minutes away from campus? Because Cox was a kid from a small community that other schools couldn't as easily access and he's likely a kid who not only was born and raised in AZ, but had parents who were as well. Willis for example is himself from out-of-state. Huge difference.

To be perfectly honest, I have complete faith in Graham for in-state recruiting, his perception in the HS community is a lot more positive than DE or DK as of now. His staff might as well have covered the valley with maroon and gold as much as I've seen them, or heard about them, being at HS games or spring practices. However of you're a big-time recruit, and hypothetically you're at say Hamilton. That means you're probably going to have around 50-60 different college coaches at your spring practice, and oh yeah you and your whole family grew up watching Michigan their whole lives because they moved here in 2000. Hometown love can only compete with that kind of attention so much.

All I'm saying is that recruiting-wise, the valley is a little bit of an anomaly. So let's try and put things in perspective before rushing to conclusions on how we're doing with in-state recruiting. We could do better, but convincing 5-star guys to stay home no matter what state you're in is difficult. In the valley there are some unique challenges that are added on top of that.

Even programs like Ohio state and Michigan lose lose kids from the respective states that they recruit. The issue is not a the "few" that got away, but rather the high percentage that elect to leave. More elect to leave then stay. If this was Ohio, Mich, or other programs there would be a lot of negatives. In Az, it has become the norm. Talk about building a fence around Az, is just that---talk. Much work needs to be done to reverse what yrs of underachievement
And sloppy coaching have done
---------------------------------------------
--- dshumm wrote:

justinc32 wrote: Where are all the Arizona HS kids?  It doesn't seem like enough emphasis has been placed on owning the state from Graham's staff...

A lot of AZ HS kids want to get out of state.  Not sure why this is sooooo difficult for some of you people to understand. 

Get over it and accept those that want to stay and represent ASU.

---------------------------------------------

justinc32 wrote: Where are all the Arizona HS kids?  It doesn't seem like enough emphasis has been placed on owning the state from Graham's staff...

Great question!  Why haven't we explored this topic before??!!?? 

JAKEandELWOOD wrote: I agree to a point with the basic premise. ASU does have to find some way wrangle the state's top talent. However what you guys don't understand is how easy it is to recruit the valley for out-of-state schools. Any PAC-12 staff could set up camp in the valley and hit 50 schools in a few days because they're all in such close proximity. Considering there are only about 20 "big-time" recruits(and that's being a little generous) in AZ and often times they play on the same team, you can see how easy it is for a school like UCLA, USC, etc. that are a 45 minute flight away to come here and basically put roughly the same recruiting output (on those elite players) as the hometown program. You can't do that in California, even in LA. It's just not as easy. UCLA's AC that is assigned to recruiting this area is going to have a much easier time being exposed to these athletes than the ASU guy assigned to SoCal will have. Because there are more players, schools, less proximity, etc. Therefore when it comes to the elite guys in the state, it's a tough battle for ASU when every single one of those top 10 guys has a dozen or more offers from very impressive programs.

In states like FLA, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, etc. not only do you have a larger talent pool to pull from, but you have an advantage in being able to hit certain schools more frequently than your counterparts simply due to geography, or offering great talents from smaller schools that other big programs will overlook. How many times do you see our kids being offered by out-of-state coaches before ASU does? Its because our elite guys are well-known because they've already been identified by other staffs in precious recruiting cycles, making the same east-valley trip to Chap, Sag, Hamilton, Chandler, Marcos, Mountain Pointe, Brophy, etc . Why do you think Graham had an easier time with Cox than he did with Willis, even though Willis was 5 minutes away from campus? Because Cox was a kid from a small community that other schools couldn't as easily access and he's likely a kid who not only was born and raised in AZ, but had parents who were as well. Willis for example is himself from out-of-state. Huge difference.

To be perfectly honest, I have complete faith in Graham for in-state recruiting, his perception in the HS community is a lot more positive than DE or DK as of now. His staff might as well have covered the valley with maroon and gold as much as I've seen them, or heard about them, being at HS games or spring practices. However of you're a big-time recruit, and hypothetically you're at say Hamilton. That means you're probably going to have around 50-60 different college coaches at your spring practice, and oh yeah you and your whole family grew up watching Michigan their whole lives because they moved here in 2000. Hometown love can only compete with that kind of attention so much.

All I'm saying is that recruiting-wise, the valley is a little bit of an anomaly. So let's try and put things in perspective before rushing to conclusions on how we're doing with in-state recruiting. We could do better, but convincing 5-star guys to stay home no matter what state you're in is difficult. In the valley there are some unique challenges that are added on top of that.

Well said, and it also goes both ways. How many kids has ASU pulled out of Cali over the years?

Exactly, and how many were from specific prominent programs? A lot. Therein lies the issue. The Cali schools apply the same exposure that we do in Cali. The problem is that the amount of elite talent in AZ can be found in only about two dozen programs. So their net is plenty wide to grab 1 or 2. Spread that out around to different programs and the kid here or there that opts to play in Tucson(or are oftentimes from Tucson) then you can see why keeping kids in the valley is no picnic. Especially with what local kids have seen in ASU's performance for the last 4 years and the recruiting legacy of DE/DK. Sorry, Graham doesn't walk on water. Expecting to him to change that culture in one season is ludicrous.

I suggest everyone look at http://preps.scout.com/

Check out all the states. Good schools tend to have control of their home states. Even some ok schools have a big presence in-state. Pitt did pretty well in PA this year. Even Indiana was able to pluck three 4* IN players.

ASU? Embarrassing. It almost even looks like ASU isn't located in Arizona.

That "get over it" is why our program has been mired in mediocrity for the last 15 years. I hope Graham's in-state efforts result in more than 3-4 AZ HS kids per year in the coming years.  If not, we will not be able to build a highly successful program trying to pluck enough players away from BIG 12, SEC and BIG 10 schools.  Our in-state recruiting success is even more important when you take into account the recently reported recruiting budgets the fact that our overall budgets and revenue lag far beyond our upward competition.