Ask Farrell: How can northern teams compete when talent resides in south?
Prospects from warm-weather states are being invited to the NFL Scouting Combine combine at drastically higher numbers than their counterparts.
Here’s a breakdown of some numbers to consider: Invitees who played high school football in Texas: 47. California: 32. Florida: 28. Georgia: 23.
Those four powerhouses are followed by Louisiana with 16, Mississippi and North Carolina with 12 each and then Alabama with 11.
Then the northern states make their appearance as Michigan and Ohio also have 11 each, followed by Maryland and Washington with 10 and Pennsylvania with nine.
The problem, though, is that a lot of elite talent in those Northern states fled south for the college football season.
Joe Burrow, from Athens, Ohio, started his career at Ohio State but ended it in blockbuster fashion at LSU where he won the Heisman Trophy and a national championship this year and is in line to become the first overall pick in the NFL Draft.
From Maryland, wide receiver Lawrence Cager (Georgia) and defensive back Trevon Diggs (Alabama) both played SEC football. So did arguably the top player in Pennsylvania’s 2017 class, running back D’Andre Swift, who picked Georgia and starred in Athens.
MORE ASK FARRELL: Why is so much top Texas talent leaving state?
The state of Washington kept a lot of top talent home except five-star quarterback Jacob Eason, who also ended up at Georgia before transferring out and playing for the Huskies this past season.
Wisconsin is a pretty good football team but only six NFL Combine invitees played their high school football there. Oregon can play some ball, but its home state’s number is only four. Minnesota is three and Iowa is one. The one player from Iowa invited to the combine is Tristan Wirfs, who could also be the first offensive lineman drafted in April. There's just not enough homegrown talent to compete with the big dogs.
In consideration of these numbers, there has been only one team since the year 2000 from a northern state that has won the national championship as Ohio State did it in 2002 and 2014.
Other than that, it’s been teams in warm-weather states and SEC squads that have won it all, and the combine numbers indicate it is not a fluke.
FARRELL'S TAKE
We ask Rivals National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell this: Can this trend change with Michigan, Penn State, Notre Dame, Oregon, possibly Utah, Wisconsin or any other programs in the northern part of the country making a run at the national title? And how much does this speak to northern schools almost being forced to recruit the south to have any chance at making a run in the College Football Playoff?
"I’ve said it forever that the northern schools need to recruit the south in order to have a chance at a national title in this day and age. Ohio State did it under Urban Meyer and continues to do it under Ryan Day, but for the other programs it’s been very hard to consistently pull four- and five-stars from the south. And that’s hurt their ability to compete.
"I don’t see much changing any time soon as the only program from the north I see winning a national title any time soon are the Buckeyes. The geographical advantage for teams like Alabama, Clemson, LSU and others is too great.”