Final thoughts on football recruiting

Who had the best recruiting class in the country? Rivals.com says Alabama. Scout.com says Ohio State.

Best in the Big 12? Both agree on Texas. Rivals says Texas was No. 5; Scout says No. 6.

How about KU and K-State?

Rivals picks KU 31^st nationally and fifth best in the Big 12. Scout says KU was No. 47 and only ninth best in the league.

K-State was No. 95 on Rivals' list, 109 on Scout's list. Both agree the first class of the second-coming of Bill Snyder was the worst class in the Big 12.

But all those are just talking points.

Any coach will tell you that you can't really evaluate a recruiting class for five years. A lot can happen. Injuries, academic, legal problems. You have to see who sticks it out and how they perform on the field. Who makes the leap from high school star to college star and who's a bust. Most of all, you need to see how their team does three, four and five years from now to evaluate a class.

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With nearly all precincts counted, we can project the final tally.

From 334 Kansas high school football programs, only 17 seniors received scholarship offers from major colleges.

KU and K-State each signed four players out of Kansas high schools. That's exactly the number they signed last year.

Here's the list:

Athlete	High School	College
Mark Fancher	Shawnee Mission NW	Air Force
Jake Morin	St. Thomas Aquinas	Air Force
David Baska	St. Thomas Aquinas	Air Force
Michael Seis	Wichita East	Air Force
Luke Keener	Hoisington	Air Force
Evan Kaufman	Newton	Air Force
Joe Brown	Bishop Carroll	Colorado State
Darian Kelly	Girard	Kansas
Riley Spencer	Hesston	Kansas
Huldon Tharp	Mulvane	Kansas
Kevin Young	Olathe North	Kansas
Ty Zimmerman	Junction City	K-State
Travis Tannahill	Olathe East	K-State
Braden Wilson	Smith Center	K-State
Tomasi Mariner	Top. Washburn Rural	K-State
Jaydan Bird	Conway Springs	Oklahoma
Marshall Musil	La Crosse	Oklahoma

Interestingly, but hardly surprising, KU signed 11 high school seniors from Texas, and K-State five.

The Big 12 schools signed a total of 10 kids out of Kansas high schools. Oklahoma took two.

On the other hand, Big 12 schools took 143 out of Texas high schools. Excluding the four Texas universities, the other Big schools signed 54 Texas players, an average of nearly seven per school.

I mention all this because I have a theory about why Texas produces a disproportionately large number of major college football players and Kansas relatively few.

Sure Texas is a bigger state. It has more than 1,150 football-playing high schools. Kansas has 343.

But Kansas, with only 29 percent as many schools as Texas produced only 7 percent as many major college football signees. So size counts, but that's not the only factor.

I just don't think Kansas does as good a job of preparing its high school athletes for major college football.

For one thing, our season is shorter. We play fewer games. Because of the weather, we might not be able to play more games unless we start earlier.

But Texas also allows two weeks of spring football. Most Texas schools take advantage of that. Those that don't are usually those with new coaches who are still assembling a staff. But then if they don't take spring ball, they get to start two-a-days in Augusta a week ahead of the other schools.

Texas also has a highly developed seven-on-seven summer football program, with league play and playoffs leading to a state championship.

I talked with a couple of Kansas' best high school football coaches before last season about this.

Randy Dreiling of Hutchinson, which has won five consecutive state titles, would love to have spring football. Unquestionably, he said, it would prepare high school athletes better for college football.

Alan Schuckman at Bishop Carroll wasn't so sure. If we had spring football, a lot of guys wouldn't play baseball or run track. He values the broader experience of playing multiple sports.

What do you think?

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Finally, if you haven't seen it, check out the New York Times story on Brian Butler, recruiting advisor to Bryce Brown, Huldon Tharp and others.

You'll find the story here.