May 13, 2012

Steve Megargee
Rivals.com Football Recruiting

Trying to explain the Southeastern Conference's string of six consecutive national championships often seems as frustrating as attempting to stop it.

Of course there's no one reason for the SEC's domination of the college football world, but that hasn't people from tying to come up with one. Armchair anthropologists have pointed out everything from population shifts toward the Sun Belt to the passion of the fan bases.

But there's one other factor that also could have at least a modest role.

Many states in the South have spring football practice at the high school level. Most states in the North don't.

Does that really make a difference? Miami coach Al Golden should know better than most, since he's seen both sides of it. He began his head coaching career at Temple by working in a state that doesn't have high school spring football. Now he's in Florida, which allows its high school teams to have full-contact spring workouts.

"I don't think there is any question that there is an advantage to being in a state where they do participate in spring football," Golden said.

A couple of changes in college football this year eventually could show us just how much of an advantage that is.

While Golden went from a state that doesn't have spring football to one that does have it, one of the game's greatest coaches is making the opposite move. After winning two national championships at Florida, Urban Meyer will attempt to match that success at Ohio State.

Ohio is recognized as one of the nation's top football-producing states, but its high schools don't have spring football practice. The Ohio High School Athletic Association's board of directors dismissed a proposal last year from the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association to have 10 day s of spring practice.

The idea behind not having spring football practice is to protect the other sports that are in season at that time. There's an interest in balancing out the sports calendar by keeping the natural fall sports in the fall, the natural winter sports in the winter and the natural spring sports in the spring. There also was the worry that other sports might seek similar offseason training periods if they were granted for football.

"Our organization - the OHSAA - has to do what's most likely to be what's best for 22 or 24 sports and not just one," OHSAA assistant commissioner Henry Zaborniak said.

Does that mean prospects from Ohio might not begin their college careers quite as prepared as recruits from Florida? It would be rather presumptuous to make that kind of blanket statement. But some coaches do believe that players who come from states with spring practice have an advantage over those who don't.

"In my years out on the road recruiting, there's a difference in just the development of guys," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "When you can't work with guys and practice this game full speed, it's hard to develop. And if you've got your rival over here practicing full speed, then they're going to be a little further ahead. It's just that simple.

"It's just like in college football. If some teams are getting or are able to have 15 days of spring practice and other teams aren't, well there's no question the team that's getting those days and that work [benefits from it]. It's fundamentals. It's technique. It's knowledge. It's understanding what you're doing, growing as a player, gaining confidence. So, yeah, there's definitely in my opinion a difference.

Ohio isn't alone in its position, though. None of the states with Big Ten schools have any sort of official spring football practice at the high school level. Not even Pennsylvania, generally regarded along with Ohio among the top northern football-producing states.

The Pennsylvania State Football Coaches Association made a request for spring football practice in the spring of 2010 and even got some star backing when its proposal won the approval of Joe Paterno and Dave Wannstedt, the Penn State and Pittsburgh coaches at the time. But the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association rejected the proposal.

"We're still very much an association that believes in having kids participate in as many sports as they possibly can, giving them opportunities to be a three-sport athlete if they want," PIAA assistant executive director Melissa Mertz said. "And our [football] season is very long. If you're in our football championships and you go to our finals, you're a week away from Christmas. There's a big overlap. ? And I'd say the final reason is concerns from our sports medicine committee. These are young, growing bodies taking quite a pounding. A lot of them will go on to play collegiately, and possibly some of those will play pro. With the issue with concussions and everything like that, our sports medicine committee has urged us to not have more of that full contact other than the 16 weeks that's permitted currently [during the season]."

The fact that all the Big Ten states don't have spring football practice means Meyer won't be at a disadvantage within his own conference. Missouri faces a different situation as it moves into the SEC.

Missouri is now the only state with an SEC program that doesn't have at least some form of spring football practice at the high school level. Granted, Missouri already dealt with this issue to some extent in the Big 12 while competing with Oklahoma and Texas, which both have some form of spring practice.

That impacts the way Missouri recruits. Missouri offensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator David Yost knows Texas prospects are often more fundamentally sound because they've had those extra practices. He needs to see if those guys also still have plenty of upside. And when he looks at a Missouri prospect, he has to understand they might be a little less refined because they haven't gone through spring practice.

"When you're evaluating a kid in Texas, you have to make sure [he has the] athleticism you're looking for because normally they're probably going to be advanced for the most part," Yost said. "When you're looking at a kid from Missouri, the athleticism stands out more because a lot of times they aren't as far along in fundamentals and skills because they're playing other sports because football hasn't really become a 12-month-a-year deal that it has in other states."

Even though Missouri doesn't have spring practice, the state does allow teams to participate in summer camps that include workouts with pads. Some of those team camps take place on Missouri's campus.

"That's kind of their spring ball time," Yost said. "The only negative of that for us is we don't get every kid that we want to see at our camp."

If Missouri feels it's at any sort of disadvantage because its in-state recruits don't have spring practice in high schools, it should look at the ACC for inspiration.

Virginia doesn't have any official spring football practice, though the Virginia High School League passed a measure last year allowing coaches to offer organized instruction out of season aside from a few dead periods. Even that measure allowed counties to impose further restrictions at the local level. Spring football has been going on for years in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

That seemingly would put Virginia Tech at a disadvantage while competing in the ACC against the likes of Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Clemson. Yet the Hokies have still won the ACC title three of the last five years while putting together a roster primarily composed of in-state recruits.

Steve Megargee is the national college columnist for Rivals.com. He can be reached at smegargee@rivals.com, and you can click here to follow him on Twitter.

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