Now, this is what closing the borders looks like.
One by one, they were asked to leave the state of Louisiana before they even arrived. Football coaches from Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas and Houston all planned to work satellite camps at Southeastern Louisiana University this summer. They were all unceremoniously disinvited last week. Tulane had announced it would work a camp with the Michigan staff. Disinvited, too.
If the coaches were confused, clarity came quickly. Tulane soon found a replacement for Michigan: LSU. And Southeastern Louisiana announced one new partner after severing ties with those A-list schools: Yes, also LSU.
The Louisiana schools are dancing around their reasons for kicking the out-of-state schools out of their camps. But they appeared to succumb to pressure from LSU, which has financial and political power in its state that few schools in the country can match. As one college official noted: “LSU’s influence is undeniable.”
By the way, Michigan has not one, but two, summer camps in Georgia next month.
Get The Picture 
One of these days UGA will wake up & realize what they have as far as home field advantage in the recruiting world too…just sad it’ll take so long.
The Cold States of the Big 10 figured it out after the SEC won 7 National Championships…to beat the SEC, we just have to go recruit their players & bring them up here.
What I’m having a hard time figuring out is why in the hell a kid from Georgia would want to move to a freezing cold wasteland to play for one of these schools. People retire or try their best to move away from those states every day.
Props to Urban & Jimmy who are selling (or buying) these kids a dream of how awesome it’s gonna be to live up there. They really have to push for the Spring & Summer visits I’m sure.
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The weather does suck, but if you can sell winning and the NFL, kids won’t care. How many NFL cities are cold weather cities?
You sell it as part of the deal of playing football for a living.
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Still a hard sale if you are a southern kid…the NFL pays a lot of money to play (not necessarily live) in those COLD & frigid states…wait, ahhh maybe.
Still if you’re from the south, you’re not packing up your entire family (unless they all have new jobs up north) & moving north for the rest of your life. You gotta realize where home & family are & that’s where you will eventually come back.
Just seems like it would make more sense to use your local connections & family for your life after football…but hey, these KIDS are 17 & 18 (& are a different generation). They aren’t thinking too far past what will happen next week.
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You’re thinking of this from your perspective and not a 18 year olds. For you, living in the south might kick ass, to a poor kid from Fort Valley, Columbus or Ann Arbor might seem to offer some things that Auburn or Knoxville, or even as much as we love it, Athens doesn’t.
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Georgia and Louisiana are totally different culturally, politically, and demographically (in the sense that Atlanta in particular is one of the most transient cities in the country and Louisiana is full of multi-generation families that never leave).
It’s just different in that state.
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You say that, but tell me a better location recruiting wise than Athens, GA. I can’t think of one. We can pick it apart, make excuses about cities, etc., but the underlying issue is that UGA just doesn’t have the in state appeal it should have. That’s on us. But the number of athletes around us, the football culture, the SEC draw, the lack of in state competition, the explosive growth of Atlanta, the beauty of Athens, on and on, leave UGA devoid of recruiting excuses, IMO.
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You’re right. Louisiana isn’t unique here. There’s no reason Florida, Clemson, Southern Cal, Texas and Auburn couldn’t do the same thing. Not one damn thing.
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But can they do it at half the cost, like we do?
We don’t think so.
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No, Louisiana is different. If you’ve never spent considerable time there, then I can’t explain it. LSU is far more engrained into every aspect of the culture there than UGA is in Georgia (for a myriad of reasons).
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I agree. Different as dogs and coon-asses.
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I agree with you, don’t even think it is close comparison either. We all know the proximity issue for Georgia recruits, we are not just surrounded, but closely surrounded by predators. But you cannot ignore the lack of a UGA bias by coaching staffs at many Georgia HS coaches. Those coaches should certainly seek the best fit and opportunity for their athletes, but there seem to be some staffs who push their own agendas with rival schools and feel no Georgia pride at all. Surprised there isn’t more pressure on both the coaches and players from local fans.
I understand Atlanta schools having less of a home state allegiance, to a degree, just seems to be holes all over the state. And, of course, UGA has no more openings than LSU with several times the number of 4 and 5 stars in state, there will always be athletes succeeding at big name schools that “got away”. It will always appear UGA coaches missed on many in-state players when viewed in a rear mirror. The more players that go out of state, the more pathways made into those schools.
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If you’re old enough to remember Band Day at one out of conference game a year, raise, your hand. Band kids from all over the state came and played on the field with the Redcoats. Really big deal if you were a high school kid and created lots of Bulldog fans at lots of high schools. That had to rub off on the football players at those schools. I’m sure it was hard to pass up the opportunity to sell the seats that used to be allocated to the band kids. However, I think we gave up a great PR opportunity that had to favorably impact recruiting.
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It was a great outreach to band kids and a cupcake game with tickets that the opposing team did not use. Another dumb move by the UGA.
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Oh, but think of the Reserve Fund!
/sarcasm off
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Also engrained in Mississippi especially down here on the Coast. More LSU fans then Ole Miss or State down here….lots of purple and yella worn for sure
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Build a Big Beautiful Wall!
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And make Bama pay for it, they seem to be looking for new ways to burn cash. Needs to be higher than Nick’s head though, these guys are athletes.
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“LSU’s influence is undeniable.”
They don’t need any education or thought control
https://bobmannblog.com/2016/01/14/the-best-times-the-worst-of-times-inside-lsus-middleton-library-and-the-cox-center/
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