Keeping Locals Local

ghost of smith hall · January 20, 2014

As much as anyone I wish that we could keep Denton kids in Denton. I do think, however, that it is completely understandable for a young man heading to college to want to spread his wings and leave the family nest. The subject made me curious to see how other schools in Texas fared at recruiting players in thier own backyard. Looking at the rosters of various schools this is what I found. Note: I did not include any suburbs in my search, only players from the actual town where the university is located with the exception of A&M which had one kid from College Station and one from Bryan.

UNT: 2 players from Denton

A&M: 2 players from Bryan/College Station

Texas Tech: 2 players from Lubbock

TCU 2 players from Fort Worth (including Devante Fields who actually played at Arlington Martin)

UT: 3 players from Austin

Baylor: 7 players from Waco

SMU: 7 players from Dallas

UTSA: 15 players from San Antonio

Houston: 19 players from Houston

Not sure what this tells us...too me it seems to say that keeping hometown kids at home is not an easy task unless you are Houston...but comparing populations 2 Denton kids going to UNT and 19 Houston kids going to Houston is about the same thing. Would love to know what ya'll think.

Green92 · January 20, 2014

I never would have gone to UNT had I grown up in Denton. I wanted to get away from my home town. I will never fault any of the Denton ISD kids for wanting to go elsewhere. There's a whole world out there to explore. It's not a knock on UNT to not keep the Denton ISD kids.

BillySee58 · January 20, 2014

Devonte Fields actually grew up in Ft Worth, so he does pretty much count. Same with 4-star running back Kyle Hicks who just redshirted after recovering from knee surgery. I played with both of them at Arlington Martin.

PlummMeanGreen · January 20, 2014

I never would have gone to UNT had I grown up in Denton. I wanted to get away from my home town. I will never fault any of the Denton ISD kids for wanting to go elsewhere. There's a whole world out there to explore. It's not a knock on UNT to not keep the Denton ISD kids.

Same here, Green92, but those Denton kids who do stay home to help out their home town college football team deserve a hero's treatment and status in my mind's eye.

GMG!

Edited January 20, 2014 by PlummMeanGreen

Green92 · January 20, 2014

Same here, Green92, but those Denton kids who do stay home to help out their home town college football team deserve a hero's treatment and status in my mind's eye.

GMG!

Absolutely!!

TheWestie · January 21, 2014

Uh....... I think your list is a little light.....

I'd count kids from Denton County as being pretty much local Denton kids. We've got the two dudes from Guyer, but we also have players from Argyle, Sanger, Pilot Point, Flower Mound, Lewisville, Frisco Wakeland (in Denton county part of Frisco).

I'm assuming that you included the kids from Missouri City, Katy, Bellaire, Spring and the Woodlands in your UH list to get to 19.

So lets go ahead and add Muenster, Keller, McKinney, Prosper, Allen, Grapevine, Saginaw, and Sherman to that list for UNT. That's adding kids from everywhere north of either 820 or 183 that adjoins the Denton area.

That brings my count of UNT "local" players to 22. But we need more.

BigDanTeague · January 21, 2014

You can't compare Denton or B/CS or Waco to San Antonio or Houston or Dallas. The basis of this breakdown is flawed.

Of course you want kids close to home. But that doesn't mean you'd take Muenster kids over Texarkana or Longview or Lufkin kids, or Sanger kids over Navasota or Cameron or Brenham kids.

UNTLifer · January 21, 2014

I'm just pleased McCarney and staff are involved with the Denton high schools when it appears coaches in the past were not. I would also like to claim East Texas as home. Anything from I35 east is our's.

wardly · January 21, 2014

I think its harder for a small town like Denton to keep locals as opposed to a major city like Houston,San Antonio, or Dallas. What surprises me is the small number of players that TCU was able to keep in Ft. Worth.

GrandGreen · January 22, 2014

Always a lot of wild assumptions in this debate, I'll add mine.

I don't think the close to home factor is why NT can't recruit the Denton area any better.

There are just as many recruits who would chose to stay close to home as those that want to get out of the area.

The biggest factor in recruiting is and has always been, the conference affiliation. CUSA clubs generally are not going to get players with options to go to the big five conferences.

North Texas has not been a program that many recruits long to be part of, no matter where they live.

Likewise, just because a local kid is good player; does not mean that NT can't do better with another recruit.

Edited January 23, 2014 by GrandGreen

UNTLifer · January 24, 2014

If a local kid doesn't want to play here over offers from one one of the Monopoly 5 Conference schools then so be it. But, his family should be forced to move out of town...just saying.

Ben Gooding · January 24, 2014

North Texas is trying to eye in on local recruits far more than in recent years. It's all about brand. The last 10 years the brand of North Texas football has been suffering. If we can keep the mojo going these local kids will eventually want to be a part of it. Then the domino effect will begin and success will be the norm and not the exception at North Texas. GMG

UNT90 · January 25, 2014

North Texas is trying to eye in on local recruits far more than in recent years. It's all about brand. The last 10 years the brand of North Texas football has been suffering. If we can keep the mojo going these local kids will eventually want to be a part of it. Then the domino effect will begin and success will be the norm and not the exception at North Texas. GMG

Yes. Next year is an even bigger year than last year for UNT football.