Ask Farrell: Are football factories good for the game?
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On Friday night, Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy visits Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei in what should be one of the best high school football games all season.
According to the Rivals.com database, there will be 60 prospects with offers in the matchup. That includes 25 from IMG Academy in the 2019 class alone, led by four players in the top 50 – running back Trey Sanders, defensive end Nolan Smith, and offensive linemen Evan Neal and Dontae Lucas.
IMG has seven players in the 2020 class already with offers including Ohio State pledge Lejond Cavazos and Miami commit Tre’von Riggins. One recruit from IMG in the 2021 class, Greg Crippen, has offers from Michigan, Purdue and Boston College.
So far this season, IMG has outscored its three opponents – Gibsonia (Pa.) Pine-Richland, Miami (Fla.) Norland and Henderson (Nev.) Liberty – by a combined 126-14 score.
On the other side of the field, Mater Dei is insanely loaded as well. The Monarchs have 16 players in the senior class with offers including Oregon commits Sean Dollars, Keyon Ware-Hudson and Jeremiah Criddell, and Colorado pledge Braedin Huffman-Dixon. All of those players and others in the 2019 class transferred to Mater Dei from other high schools.
In the 2020 class, Mater Dei has seven prospects with offers including four-star quarterback and USC commit Bryce Young, who played his sophomore season at Los Angeles Cathedral. Four recruits in the 2021 class have Power Five offers.
There is a debate going on, however, whether it’s good for high school football generally to have top prospects transferring to a select few schools to form incredibly loaded rosters. In IMG’s case, players from around the country head to the Tampa area every year. For Mater Dei, top local prospects in Southern California are transferring to the school more often.
We ask Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell to weigh in on whether the consolidation of talent at schools such as IMG Academy and Mater Dei is good for high school football in general or troubling for its future.
“Well it’s good for us, I’ll tell you that. And by us I mean high school football scouts because it allows for more one-stop shopping than ever before. That means it’s also good for college coaches as well. But the question is, is it good for the kids? I honestly see no downside to it. They get to play with and practice against the best day in and day out and become better football players. They get to feel the pressure of a difficult schedule and the pressure of having to win all the time.
"IMG is a different animal of course but for Mater Dei, schools around the country have been compiling local stars for years and years, from New Jersey's Don Bosco to Maryland's Good Counsel to other programs around the country. Prospects in this day and age are so advanced that this is a necessary evil, if it’s an evil at all. I’m all for it.”