The Mid-Atlantic region was very, very good to West Virginia State's football team on National Signing Day. Ditto the Buckeye State when it came to the University of Charleston.
The Yellow Jackets scooped up more than half their 2016 signees from Maryland and Virginia, while more than half of the Golden Eagles' signing class came from Ohio. Both WVSU coach Jon Anderson and UC coach Pat Kirkland said proximity to those exceptional football states is one of the best benefits of their respective programs' Kanawha Valley location.
Thirteen of State's 24 signees came from either Maryland or Virginia - seven from Maryland and six from Virginia. The two states' borders might as well bleed together, WVSU recruiters are there so often, Anderson said.
"We're focusing on population centers," Anderson said. "We're not on an unlimited recruiting budget. We want to see as many kids in the time frame that we're out. There's good football in the population centers, good alumni bases and good connections, and our coaches have been recruiting those areas since we started here."
Of the 33 signees UC announced Wednesday, 17 came from Ohio.
The three states are loaded with high school football talent. Recruiting website 247Sports.com runs a composite ranking, including all of the major recruiting sites. According to that composite, nine of the top 100 recruits and 21 of the top 200 recruits in the United States hail from one of those three states.
So both teams pay special attention to those areas. West Virginia State sends two recruiters to both Maryland and Virginia. Linebackers coach Isaiah Jackson and defensive line coach James Groce recruit Maryland, while offensive coordinator John Pennington and defensive coordinator Nick Benedetto recruit Virginia.
UC's connections in Ohio run deep, starting with Kirkland, who grew up outside of Akron. Secondary coach Steve Howard grew up in Columbus, and tight ends coach Travis Everhart is originally from Frankfort and is the former head coach at Unioto High in Chillicothe.
"We've got some guys with good ties there and you know how that is," Kirkland said. "Coaches and families want to be somewhere where they know somebody. And it's good football, it really is."
Kirkland and Anderson said that proximity can help both coach and recruit. For the player, it isn't difficult to get home to Ohio, nor is it tough for the players' parents to travel to the Kanawha Valley when necessary.
"I can get home to Akron in 3 hours, 10 minutes," Kirkland said. "I can get to Columbus in just under 3 hours. It's the right distance for those kids to get away and have the college experience, but they're close enough to home where parents can see them play and they can get home when they need to."
It's a big plus for the coaches when it comes to recruiting budgets. Top high school football in a five-hour driving radius helps keep costs low. Anderson remembers his days at the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota, where he served as defensive coordinator before coming to WVSU. They hit the big population areas in the region, too, in their recruiting travels, but those were Denver, Colorado, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Kansas City, Missouri. A drive to Denver comes close to 10 hours.
"When doing my research for this job, I was really attracted to the population centers we could get to within a drive," Anderson said. "We don't have to fly anyone in for official visits. When we were out in the midwest, we had a lot of flights our kids had to take, and that's expensive.
"All our kids [at State] can drive in," he added. "All our families can see their sons play, too."