Baylor has had an amazing run in recruiting. They are currently the top ranked Big 12 team. Good recruiters? Sure. But here's another facet of that success. Let's just focus on the four stars to keep this simple, but the same thing applies to most of the high three stars they have committed.
Using Google maps, you will find that two of their EIGHT four stars live within an hour's drive. Four live within two hours, and one is four hours. [One is a juco, so I have no idea where he's actually from]. All of those would be 8-12 hours from MHK. So, a Baylor coach can visit a four star recruit each week, with only a few hours invested. He can invite that kid to come for unofficial visits, which are easy to do, and most of these kids probably end up making several unofficials, so they really get to know the coaches and other players.
Meanwhile, a K State coach needs to spend a whole day [or more] to visit the same kid. The kid probably doesn't have the money for flying on unofficials, and his parents probably balk at spending two days driving to make the same visit, so assuming you can even get a visit, it will come down to one official. We know Bill's attitude at investing this kind of time in recruiting, but whoever replaces him is going to have to shortchange something else to get the same amount of "face time" with those recruits.
So, it comes time for making decisions on where you go for officials. No problem for Baylor. Play your Friday night game, sleep in on Saturday, and drive over for the game day. Spend the night, sleep in on Sunday. Spend most of the day with the players and staff and then drive home.
Let's [try to] get the kid to come to K State. Play that same Friday night game. Get up before the crack of dawn, drive 1-3 hours to Dallas, check in an hour early for the 9 AM flight, fly an hour and a half and get to campus about the same time as at Baylor, but with much less sleep, and several more hours invested in travel. Spend the night, get up early [for a kid, it probably wouldn't seem early for us], so you can spend a couple of hours before heading to the airport to catch the late morning flight. Alternatively, you could take the later flight, but then you would get home very late before a Monday morning. Less than half the time on campus, and way more than twice the time travelling.
Meanwhile, the parents are looking at this and saying "I can't do this six times a year to see my son play" and are making those feelings known.
Every time I see somone post about "we have direct flights" it strikes me how ludicrous this is as an "advantage".
Using Google maps, you will find that two of their EIGHT four stars live within an hour's drive. Four live within two hours, and one is four hours. [One is a juco, so I have no idea where he's actually from]. All of those would be 8-12 hours from MHK. So, a Baylor coach can visit a four star recruit each week, with only a few hours invested. He can invite that kid to come for unofficial visits, which are easy to do, and most of these kids probably end up making several unofficials, so they really get to know the coaches and other players.
Meanwhile, a K State coach needs to spend a whole day [or more] to visit the same kid. The kid probably doesn't have the money for flying on unofficials, and his parents probably balk at spending two days driving to make the same visit, so assuming you can even get a visit, it will come down to one official. We know Bill's attitude at investing this kind of time in recruiting, but whoever replaces him is going to have to shortchange something else to get the same amount of "face time" with those recruits.
So, it comes time for making decisions on where you go for officials. No problem for Baylor. Play your Friday night game, sleep in on Saturday, and drive over for the game day. Spend the night, sleep in on Sunday. Spend most of the day with the players and staff and then drive home.
Let's [try to] get the kid to come to K State. Play that same Friday night game. Get up before the crack of dawn, drive 1-3 hours to Dallas, check in an hour early for the 9 AM flight, fly an hour and a half and get to campus about the same time as at Baylor, but with much less sleep, and several more hours invested in travel. Spend the night, get up early [for a kid, it probably wouldn't seem early for us], so you can spend a couple of hours before heading to the airport to catch the late morning flight. Alternatively, you could take the later flight, but then you would get home very late before a Monday morning. Less than half the time on campus, and way more than twice the time travelling.
Meanwhile, the parents are looking at this and saying "I can't do this six times a year to see my son play" and are making those feelings known.
Every time I see somone post about "we have direct flights" it strikes me how ludicrous this is as an "advantage".
