Florida's football recruiting hotbed drying up for out-of-state programs

CLEMSON -- Despite playing No. 8 Miami on Saturday, Clemson safety DeAndre McDaniel wore a Florida Marlins baseball cap while meeting the media this week, saying he has to represent his home state.

Florida is well represented on the Clemson roster.

Sixteen Tigers are from Florida. They include the team's best player, C.J. Spiller, starting quarterback Kyle Parker, leading receiver Jacoby Ford, and McDaniel, who might be the team's defensive MVP.

Florida is the nation's most fertile recruiting ground. For years the state has supplemented rosters across the country and in the ACC. While the pipeline is not running dry, the flow of recruits out of the state has slowed.

Commitments from Florida recruits to ACC programs outside the state dropped 30 percent over the course of the decade. Florida prospects migrating to non-Florida ACC schools from 2001-03 numbered 94.

The most-recent three-year period (2007-09) yielded 66.

North Carolina coach Butch Davis rebuilt the Hurricanes' recruiting from the talent-rich Miami area in the early part of the decade. With his four recruiting classes since joining the Tar Heels, Davis has signed three Florida players.

"It's not as easy to get players out of there as it was 10, 15 years ago," Davis said

After signing 36 Florida players from 2001-08, Clemson didn't sign a Floridian in 2009, and doesn't have a Florida commitment among its 18 verbals for 2010.

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney says there have been no changes in recruiting philosophy. "We treat Florida almost like an in-state area," Swinney said. "In the past if you weren't going to the Big Three (Miami, Florida, Florida State) and you wanted to go to a big-time D-I, you had to leave the state."

Not anymore.

While some of the decline can be traced to recruiting strategy -- including Chuck Amato and his ties to Florida vacating N.C. State -- another major factor is four Florida universities joining the Football Bowl Subdivision since 2001: South Florida, Central Florida, Florida International and Florida Atlantic.

South Florida has ascended the quickest, joining the Big East, and earning a ranking as high as No. 2 in 2007.

Clemson offensive coordinator Billy Napier said South Florida has challenged Clemson for recruits, and some see the Bulls on a similar track as Florida State in the late 1970s under Bobby Bowden -- FSU, which South Florida defeated this season.

"With South Florida, Central Florida, (Florida Atlantic) and (Florida International), there are a lot more options for kids to stay," Davis said. "There are enough athletes that it's enticing, not only for ACC schools, but probably about every conference in the country prudently tries to recruit in the state of Florida.

"But it's become tougher."

A recent Sports Illustrated study found Florida led all states during a five-year period (2004-08) by producing 981 Division I football players.

"I think Florida is clearly one of six or eight states that has great high school football," Davis said. "Part of it is because they have spring practice, which I think is an extraordinarily important aspect in growing football programs.

"The population gives tremendous amount of access to young athletes and there is a big emphasis on high school sports, which are still extremely important."

Clemson defensive coordinator Kevin Steele has recruited Florida for two decades.

"It's a very competitive sports state," Steele said. "Little kids are in very competitive environment in that regard. And there are more high schools in (south Florida's) Miami-Dade and Broward counties than there are in this state."

From 2004-08, 196 Division I recruits per year came from Florida -- more than the five-year total for South Carolina (169), which is why Clemson and South Carolina (36 Florida commitments since 2001) have gone there to supplement their rosters.

With four new FBS in-state programs signing a combined 80-100 Florida prospects per season, the available talent pool has diminished.

While the majority of Florida's four- and five-star prospects continue to choose Miami, Florida or Florida State or out-of-state powers -- Spiller is the only five-star prospect to attend an out-of-state ACC school since 2002, which FSU coach Bobby Bowden said was a shock. And According Rivals.com rankings, only 17 four-star recruits have left for rival ACC schools since 2002 -- the majority of Florida recruits leaving are the mid-level, two- and three-star players.

They are the players who provide depth and competition on rosters.

Players on the Clemson roster like Kevin Alexander, Rashard Hall and Xavier Brewer who were not offered scholarships by the state's Big Three.

A three-star prospect like McDaniel developed into a star.

They are becoming rare prospects as outside programs continue to raid the state, and new in-state programs develop.

So do ACC schools have to have success in Florida?

"In a way," Hall said, "yeah, you have to."