College football has reached the mid-point of its season, while another season running parallel to college football is just now heating up.
The vastly popular battle for top high school prospects, or recruiting, is in full swing. Gathering talented prospects who–hopefully–bring success to your favorite team in near future is a complex challenge involving many factors. Respected coach, diligent recruiting coordinator, campus facilities, location, conference affiliation, positions needs and a little bit of lying, according to West Virginia head coach Dana Holgerson, are key factors at play in the recruiting game.
But arguably the most important factor that will make or break a team’s recruiting haul doesn’t involve talking to recruits or renting decked-out limos to impress teenage ballplayers on a visit. It’s one word.
Winning.
The words of the late Al Davis, “Just win, baby,” means everything in recruiting 18-year-old wide-eyed high school seniors.
Teams from the American Athletic Conference aren’t only trying to win games for selfish reasons or to appease fans; they–and I mean mostly coaches–hope winning helps build a better future.
At 4-1 (2-0 AAC), Temple is proving winning on the gridiron can do wonders for a team’s battle on the recruiting trail.
Temple’s current 18-man class contains nine three-star recruits, according to 247Sports.com. Eight commitments are from New Jersey, four from Pennsylvania, three from Maryland/D.C., and three from recruiting hotbed Florida.
The 2015 Owls’ recruiting class is currently ranked fourth in the AAC by Scout.com, third by 247Sports, and second by Rivals. Those high rankings will change as the football season progresses and into the off-season as we approach National Signing Day in February.
For Temple’s strong 2015 class to change for the better, or, at least, stay intact, the Owls must continue their impressive resurrection from last year’s awful 2-10 AAC debut.
Temple head coach Matt Rhule and his staff compiled a strong 2014 class despite the team’s failures on the field. Still, none of Temple’s commitments were ranked in the AAC’s Top-10 list. (A list dominated by South Florida and UCF.)
Winning football games is important for all teams that desire a lofty recruiting ranking in their conference, but its even more imperative for teams located outside of one of the major recruiting hotbeds.
Athlon Sports analyzed which states the Top-200 high school prospects from 2008-2012 hailed from in a 2013 article. According to the publication’s research, Florida and Texas were undisputed No. 1 and 2 in producing talent. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and North Carolina (states outside of Florida and Texas containing AAC members) all ranked in the Top 10.
Pennsylvania, Temple’s home state, ranked No. 7 in Athlon’s poll, produced 121 less Top-200 prospects between 2008-2012 than Athlon’s No. 1 state Florida.
Philadelphia is one of the top northern hotbeds for high school football talent in the U.S., but the Owls are constantly battling more established, tradition rich programs Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference’s northern contingency for recruits.
South Florida, UCF, Houston, and SMU have an advantage in recruiting over Temple and other AAC members; those four are in states with enough high school talent to completely fill their rosters.
South Florida had the AAC’s second-best recruiting class, according to Rivals, in 2014 with 28 commitments, two of which garnered four-star rankings, and 22 came from Florida. The Bulls maintained their top class despite going 2-10 in 2013; just a perk the Bulls receive for being located in the country’s recruiting gold mine. The rest of the AAC must venture into their backyards and into the country’s top hotbeds to fill their rosters with talent.
Peeking at the Owls’ current class shows Rhule and his staff are doing an excellent job mining Pennsylvania’s neighboring states and building a pipeline to one of the countries top recruiting states, Florida.
Temple possesses most of the key recruiting factors stated at the beginning of this article: attractive location, good coaching, improved conference affiliation (AAC is much better than the MAC), and nice facilities. But the one factor that will persuade talented high school players to attend Philly’s world-class university for years to come is the “W”-word.
Finishing 2014 on the left-side of the win/loss column by a large margin should help Temple maintain a strong class and possibly influence some recruits to flip their original verbal commitment and soar with the Owls for the next four years.
An AAC championship isn’t necessary. The Owls just need to win as much as possible and prove their one of the AAC’s toughest outs each week. Earning big wins and winning the games that count–like destroying AAC and regional rival UConn–will aid the Owls in maintain their top class.
Temple can already place a check by “wins that count.”
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