What Recruits Are Looking For!
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 4:12 pmMost top recruits say BCS schools considered first
By Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY
The BCS is, indeed, sexy. One concern about college football's Bowl Championship Series, raised repeatedly by critics and acknowledged by its architects, is borne out by the game's stars-to-be: Schools with an entree to its four top-tier bowls own a recruiting advantage.
More than two-thirds of the respondents to a USA TODAY survey of the nation's top 80 high school football seniors said earlier this month that BCS affiliation was a consideration as they weighed their college options. About one in four said it mattered "a lot." (Related survey: What's going through prep stars' minds?)
Many of the players already have announced their college choices, most recently Louisville Trinity quarterback Brian Brohm to Big East-bound Louisville. Prospects can formally sign Feb. 4.
"It's a big deal, especially for (elite) recruits like us," Loveland (Colo.) center Jeff Byers said of the BCS. "I mean, you don't want to go to a school where you're going to get left out of the national title every year. That's the ultimate goal. When you're a high-caliber player, you don't want to be sitting back watching some other team playing for the national title. You want to be a part of it."
The 6-4, 285-pound lineman has said he will attend Southern California. A total of 59 of the top 100 prospects rated by ESPN.com's Tom Lemming have made college choices, and all but two will play for BCS-affiliated programs.
USA TODAY surveyed the high school stars as they prepared for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio earlier this month. Players responded anonymously to the written questionnaire, though Byers, Brohm and six others spoke during a one-hour roundtable discussion of college football issues.
Well more than half of them said they understand the BCS, which uses a complicated and controversial mathematical formula to select two teams to play for the college national championship. Of those who professed to understand it, the percentage who factored the BCS into their recruiting decisions was even greater: almost three in four (34 of 46).
The BCS now is weighing its future format amid charges that its virtual six-league exclusiveness is unfairly tipping the balance of power in major-college football. In addition to somehow opening up access, the conference commissioners who run the 6-year-old system have suggested eliminating the BCS tag and inferences that some schools bear it and others don't.
More than two-thirds of the high school players preferred a playoff to the BCS.
Among the survey's other findings:
•More than 62% of the players said they were swayed during recruiting by scope and condition of stadiums, locker rooms and practice facilities and the money it appears a school devotes to football, doing little to ease NCAA concerns about a spending "arms race."
•A little more than a third said nutritional supplements are necessary to keep up in big-time football. A little less than a third (25 of 79) admitted using supplements, but almost half put the percentage of teammates they thought used them last season at roughly 50% or more.
•Were the door to the NFL draft open, 12 of the 80 respondents said they could envision themselves trying to play in the league rather than in college next season. Not surprisingly, nine of those 12 backed Maurice Clarett's challenge of current draft-eligibility restrictions.
•Given a chance to swap lives with Peyton Manning or Jeremy Shockey, a slight majority preferred the straight-arrow Manning (42) to the larger-living Shockey (36).
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/football/2004-01-22-recruits-bcs_x.htm
By Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY
The BCS is, indeed, sexy. One concern about college football's Bowl Championship Series, raised repeatedly by critics and acknowledged by its architects, is borne out by the game's stars-to-be: Schools with an entree to its four top-tier bowls own a recruiting advantage.
More than two-thirds of the respondents to a USA TODAY survey of the nation's top 80 high school football seniors said earlier this month that BCS affiliation was a consideration as they weighed their college options. About one in four said it mattered "a lot." (Related survey: What's going through prep stars' minds?)
Many of the players already have announced their college choices, most recently Louisville Trinity quarterback Brian Brohm to Big East-bound Louisville. Prospects can formally sign Feb. 4.
"It's a big deal, especially for (elite) recruits like us," Loveland (Colo.) center Jeff Byers said of the BCS. "I mean, you don't want to go to a school where you're going to get left out of the national title every year. That's the ultimate goal. When you're a high-caliber player, you don't want to be sitting back watching some other team playing for the national title. You want to be a part of it."
The 6-4, 285-pound lineman has said he will attend Southern California. A total of 59 of the top 100 prospects rated by ESPN.com's Tom Lemming have made college choices, and all but two will play for BCS-affiliated programs.
USA TODAY surveyed the high school stars as they prepared for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio earlier this month. Players responded anonymously to the written questionnaire, though Byers, Brohm and six others spoke during a one-hour roundtable discussion of college football issues.
Well more than half of them said they understand the BCS, which uses a complicated and controversial mathematical formula to select two teams to play for the college national championship. Of those who professed to understand it, the percentage who factored the BCS into their recruiting decisions was even greater: almost three in four (34 of 46).
The BCS now is weighing its future format amid charges that its virtual six-league exclusiveness is unfairly tipping the balance of power in major-college football. In addition to somehow opening up access, the conference commissioners who run the 6-year-old system have suggested eliminating the BCS tag and inferences that some schools bear it and others don't.
More than two-thirds of the high school players preferred a playoff to the BCS.
Among the survey's other findings:
•More than 62% of the players said they were swayed during recruiting by scope and condition of stadiums, locker rooms and practice facilities and the money it appears a school devotes to football, doing little to ease NCAA concerns about a spending "arms race."
•A little more than a third said nutritional supplements are necessary to keep up in big-time football. A little less than a third (25 of 79) admitted using supplements, but almost half put the percentage of teammates they thought used them last season at roughly 50% or more.
•Were the door to the NFL draft open, 12 of the 80 respondents said they could envision themselves trying to play in the league rather than in college next season. Not surprisingly, nine of those 12 backed Maurice Clarett's challenge of current draft-eligibility restrictions.
•Given a chance to swap lives with Peyton Manning or Jeremy Shockey, a slight majority preferred the straight-arrow Manning (42) to the larger-living Shockey (36).
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/football/2004-01-22-recruits-bcs_x.htm