The Bobcat Nation

In the BSC where would you think a coach would have the easiest time recruiting good 1-AA talent? U of M has the winning tradition, Stadium and Game Day experience but they do play in Missoula. I would think Portland and Sacramento would have an advantage in that they have the City with all the things a city offers, they have a good climate and they have a lot of local population to draw from. They also have more "local" competition. I would think Ogden would be touch because of the Mormon dominance (at least from an out of state perspective) and because of all of the in-state competition. I would think that EWU and ISU would be by far the toughest places to recruit in the BSC.

I am amazed how well Wyoming is playing. I can't imagine a top HS player picking Laramie. Or Logan Utah for that matter.

Although UM/Missoula is not a big city, the players are treated like gods there and the whole town has a very big college atmoshpere, as far as party/bar scene goes. I believe it was three years ago they were ranked #6 party college by playboy

cornbreadfred wrote:Although UM/Missoula is not a big city, the players are treated like gods there and the whole town has a very big college atmoshpere, as far as party/bar scene goes. I believe it was three years ago they were ranked #6 party college by playboy

That is a great reason to pick a college I guess we know why they have intersessions

Cliff’s old crew use to hit up the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Colorado. No one else in the Big Sky recruited these states as well as MSU did. Now we go to California just like every other college in the country and hope that we can convince some athlete that Bozeman is the best fit for them… MSU really had a good pipeline from MN. There was even an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune talking about all the players from MN that were going to MSU. Gary I am sure you remember that article. We had a good thing going with that connection…

mquast53000 wrote:Cliff’s old crew use to hit up the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Colorado. No one else in the Big Sky recruited these states as well as MSU did. Now we go to California just like every other college in the country and hope that we can convince some athlete that Bozeman is the best fit for them… MSU really had a good pipeline from MN. There was even an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune talking about all the players from MN that were going to MSU. Gary I am sure you remember that article. We had a good thing going with that connection…

Yes and that was all Butch Damberger. Kramer has no interest in MN.

Both the Cats and Griz are missing out greatly by not recruiting MN. There is only one IA school in the state, and no IAA schools to compete with. The second tier kids go to NDSU, UND, SDSU, or No. Iowa. The Nordic heritage in MN grows lots of big strong kids. They also grow lots of kids who are smart and strong academically. I predict that NDSU will quickly become a national IAA power by getting a full compliment of 65 schloarships and their pipeline to MN kids.

I will say this about Big Sky recruiting, I have been told by several black Griz players over the years that Missoula's lack of black folks makes it much more difficult to attract black athletes to UM. Got to be the same in Bozeman. I would think that the bigger city schools like PSU and Sac St. would have a definate edge there. Even EWU is close enough to Spokane, which has a fairly significant black population to make it attractive to recruit black athletes.

As one former black Griz player told me "it was tough going to UM for a brother, there just were'nt any sistas going to school there".

The Griz used to have a great recruiting pipeline from Hawaii which seems to have dried up. If you can convince a player to come from the island to Montana they must be doing something right.

If they were doing so much right, why aren't they still getting kids from Hawaii? Tommie Lee was the connection. He is long gone.....so are the Hawaiian players.

We have a very nice and productive pipeline of Samoan players here at MSU. I love those guys - they are very good football players, seem like great young men, and are tough as nails.

Wolfman wrote:If they were doing so much right, why aren't they still getting kids from Hawaii? Tommie Lee was the connection. He is long gone.....so are the Hawaiian players.

Hopefully MSU will start a recruiting link to the Big Island; now that we have our own "Flying Hawaiian" Mike Bass!

Don't you think that with the rise of NDSU and SDSU, it would be hard to convince a kid to jump the Dakotas and come to Montana to play. I remember when we used to recruit the Colorado area. With UNC moving in, we are going to get some visibility in the CO area. I remember guys like Jonathan Taylor, Lamont Bell, and oh yeah, Ryan Johnson. And those are just the guys that played in my era.

Just a thought

I keep waiting for Sac State to come alive. It has a great overall environment and with the demise of so many football programs in California including Northridge, Long Beach State, Cal St. Fullerton, UOP (a few years back) and the reduction of 1A scholarships by about 10 per program, there are at least 300 football players down there who previously would have been on a scholie that aren't. Look what Sweeney did in Fresno! It seems they could ramp up and be playing the Reno's, San Jose's, Idaho's, Fresno's in a hurry.

raincat wrote:I keep waiting for Sac State to come alive. It has a great overall environment and with the demise of so many football programs in California including Northridge, Long Beach State, Cal St. Fullerton, UOP (a few years back) and the reduction of 1A scholarships by about 10 per program, there are at least 300 football players down there who previously would have been on a scholie that aren't. Look what Sweeney did in Fresno! It seems they could ramp up and be playing the Reno's, San Jose's, Idaho's, Fresno's in a hurry.

There are over 1M people in Sacramento. Most are Fresno State Fans. If SAC could somehow shift that support to SSU they could be really good. I was at the SAC game last year and there were 1000 Bobcats Fans and maybe 500 fans for SAC. Their side lookied empty. Their booster seats (similar to our gold seats) had maybe 20 people in them.

Of course, with Davis going D-I, that seals Sac State to second tier.

I would think NAU would be in a good spot. Their state has over 5 million with just 2 D-1A schools and no other 1-AA's or D-2's. They're an easy drive from San Diego and LA and Las Vegas, with Phoenix and Tucson from their own state and Albuquerque to the east. If the people of Flagstaff (what a strange name for a town) ever supported NAU with any passion that could be a real attractive place for a football player.

I'd like us to recruit Minnesota and Colorado along with California, but I guess you go where your coaches know. We got Lulay because Don Bailey knows Oregon. Kramer is from Washington-we get a lot of Washington kids. California has over 35 million people-or probably about what Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Montana combined. Thus everybody west of the Mississippi recruits California.

I wonder how long Sac will have a football team. I hope they don't drop the sport, but an awful lot of California universities have set the precedent.

Just another thought...when MSU was in it's golden age for football (50's and 60's I guess, a lot of our out of state players came from Pennsylvania and Ohio (so I've been told), maybe we should look out there for talent-there's an awful lot of high school football out there.

BozoneCat wrote:We have a very nice and productive pipeline of Samoan players here at MSU. I love those guys - they are very good football players, seem like great young men, and are tough as nails.

Bozone,
I couldn't agree with you more. I played with around 8 samoans in college and they were so true to the article that was written about Epi.
1) They are very tight family groups
2) They support each other no matter what. But, also keep each other in line
3) Impressively strong
4) They are warriors

Belgrade~

Good point about Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those two places are huge hotbeds of football talent, I've often wondered why we don't go out there a little bit more. Yeah, money doesn't grow on trees. It might be nice to get some kids that aren't as affected by the cold weather, though. I guess I would just like to see us expand our recruiting focus out of California and instead become a little more broad in our efforts by going back to Colorado, Minnesota, the Dakotas (much harder now that NDSU and SDSU are I-AA), and breach some new areas like Wisconsin and Ohio. Before I get flamed, I am aware that this is merely a dream as our money just won't go that far...

In the early 70s, Montana developed a brief pipeline to the Cincinnati, Ohio area. They signed 10 high school kids from that area. The Missoulian had a big picture of the 10 kids all from the same area in Ohio. Trouble is, 9 of the 10 left the program the next year.

It is always a big risk when you recruit a kid to a different geographical area of the country. So many of them have trouble adjusting to life and school so far away from home. Nothing messes up a recruiting class more than having 4-5 players leave the program.

Glenn's last recruiting class had that happen, and left a big gap in experience coming through the program.

Yes but it you sign 2-3 from several different areas, you are not as susceptible to that.

I really think that we need to look at the states that are the largest feeder states into MSU as a whole (Washington, Minnesota, and Colorado). Montana seems to be a pretty good culture match for these kids, and the football recruits will more than likely already know people from their high school that are on campus as enrolled students.

I know for a fact that we do ZERO football recruiting in Colorado (Cerise was recomended by a coach, we didn't find him) and Minnesota. I think we pretty much focus on Cali, Washington, and (to a lesser extent) Oregon. I would love to see us hit the road a lot more in Colorado since UNC will be in the conference, and our recent game against CSU and next year's game against CU. I also think that the altitude network will help get the name out in Colorado.

With all of this exposure in Colorado, I have not a clue why we aren't recruiting there.