Tight race for most in-state talent for the SEC

As everything currently stands, 80.3 percent of all prospects committed to Southeastern Conference football programs for the 2016 recruiting cycle hail from within the league’s geographic footprint (i.e. states where an SEC school is located).

Once again, the state of Georgia leads the way, followed by two of the other major talent-producing states within the footprint–Florida and Texas.

Here’s how it breaks down within the footprint.

Prospects from outside of the footprint account for 19.7 percent of all SEC commits, which would be more than any single state within the footprint currently, though that amount is likely to change by National Signing Day. Several prospects from Georgia, Florida, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana all appear SEC-bound, it’s just a matter of picking a program.

Here are some bullet points on that subject.

• Ohio leads the way among out-of-footprint states with 14 current SEC commits, led by Kentucky with 13 Buckeye State prospects currently pledged. Under head coach Mark Stoops, the Wildcats have worked Ohio better than any other SEC program in recent history, which makes sense given that they are the closest SEC program to the state and Northern Kentucky is a suburb of the talent-rich Cincinnati area.
• North Carolina, which has sent stars like Todd Gurley and D.J. Humphries to the SEC in recent cycles, is second with seven commits.
• Here’s an outlier–Illinois is third among the non-footprint states with five commits. All are heading to Missouri. Just like Kentucky does with Ohio, the Tigers are in a good spot to head across the eastern border of their state and raid the Land of Lincoln.
• There are two prospects from the state of Hawaii heading to SEC programs this cycle, far and away the state with the most prospects committed that is the furthest distance from the league.

JC Shurburtt

Recruiting writer for Saturday Down South