BleacherCoaches.com

Big Ten is doing pretty well. Not a lot of kids overall are being taken from outside the local Big Ten areas, though. Ohio State is doing very well per usual, and Michigan's class is shaping up to be another huge one for Rodriguez: his second in 2 years. They landed 2 QB commits: Beaver (most have him as a projected WR) and Kevin Newsome, a kid who had offers to tons of schools. Penn State picked up a bunch of commits recently, most notably being Givens, a former OSU commit. Michigan State has received verbals from the top 2 RB's in the state of Michigan, and MSU is building what looks to be the best class of recent memory. D'antonio is going to do very well at MSU. Another team off to a decent start is Minnesota, and I am expecting big things from the Gophers in the next 2 seasons, under their new coach, as they put the pieces in place to run that new offense. Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois are off to slow starts. Indiana and Purdue are lagging badly, as of right now, and the thing I don't like about the Purdue situation is that they are about to make a coaching change after '08. The new guy better get his act together pretty quickly, as far as recruiting goes, because there's about a zero-percent chance that Purdue is going to compete in-state for recruits with Notre Dame. I think the Purdue program is in a lot of trouble, and I would not be surprised if they ended up at the bottom of this conference for 5 years. I'm trying to watch for patterns, and there is a lot of talk about the Big Ten being overrated. Rodriguez and Tressel are doing pretty well getting kids from out of state, but the most of the commits, conference-wide, as of right now are vastly kids who live in the Big Ten region.

ILLINOIS

Lendell Buckner: 4-star DT (Chicago, IL)
Leon Hill: 4-star OT (Chicago, IL)

INDIANA

none

IOWA

David Barrent: 4-star OT (West Des Moines, IA)
Brad Rogers: 1-star FB (Toledo, OH)

MICHIGAN

Shavodrick Beaver: 4-star WR (Wichita Falls, TX)
Kevin Newsome: 5-star QB (Chesapeake, VA)
Fitzgerald Toussaint: 3-star RB (Youngstown, OH)
Isaiah Bell: 1-star S (Youngstown, OH)
Teric Jones: 4-star RB (Detroit, MI)
JT Turner: 4-star S (Massillon, OH)
William Campbell: 5-star DT (Detroit, MI)

MICHIGAN STATE

Blake Treadwell: 3-star C (East Lansing, MI)
Larry Caper: 4-star RB (Battle Creek, MI)
Andrew Maxwell: 3-star QB (Midland, MI)
Edwin Baker: 4-star RB (Oak Park, MI)
Donald Spencer: 3-star WR (Ypsilanti, MI)
Chris Norman: 4-star SLB (Detroit, MI)

MINNESOTA

Hasan Lipscomb: 3-star RB (Houston, TX)
Victor Keise: 1-star WR (Coconut Creek, FL)
Ed Olson: 3-star OT (Mahtomedi, MN)
Moses Alipate: 4-star QB (Bloomington, MN)
Josh Campion: 3-star OT (Fergus Falls, MN)

NORTHWESTERN

Mike Trumpy: 1-star RB (Wheaton, IL)
Evan Watkins: 3-star QB (Carol Stream, IL)

OHIO STATE

James Jackson: 4-star WR (Grand Ledge, MI)
Zach Boren: 1-star MLB (Pickerington, OH)
Corey Linsley: 4-star OT (Youngstown, OH)
Melvin Fellows: 4-star DE (Garfield Heights, OH)
Dorian Bell: 5-star WLB (Monroeville, PA)
Jordan Hall: 4-star RB (Jeannette, PA)
Jamie Wood: 4-star S (Pickerington, OH)
Chris Fields: 3-star WR (Painesville, OH)
CJ Barnett: 4-star CB (Clayton, OH)
Jack Mewhort: 4-star OT (Toledo, OH)
Adam Homan: 3-star FB (Coldwater, OH)
Johnny Simon: 5-star DT (Youngstown, OH)
Storm Klein: 4-star SLB (Newark, OH)
Jordan Whiting: 4-star MLB (Louisville, KY)

PENN STATE

Derrick Thomas: 3-star CB (Greenbelt, MD)
Darrell Givens: 4-star CB (Indian Head, MD)
Stephen Obeng-Agyapong: 3-star S (Cheektowaga, NY)
Mark Arcidiacono: 3-star OT (Philadelphia, PA)
Malcolm Willis: 3-star S (Indian Head, MD)
Ty Howle: 1-star C (Bunn, NC)

PURDUE

none

WISCONSIN

Ryan Groy: 3-star OG (Middleton, WI)
Jordan Kohout: 4-star DT (Waupun, WI)
Shelby Harris: 3-star DE (Mequon, WI)

You said that not alot of kids were being taken from outside local Big Ten areas. Do you think that's because of The Big Ten Network???? Let's face it, except for some of the big games each week, kids across the country are NOT seeing alot of Big Ten games unless they have that network. Wonder is this is hurting the conference outside of those Big Ten areas you mentioned. Even kids living in Big Ten areas are not seeing as many conference games.

Actually, the Big 10 seems to get more coverage than any other conference except the SEC. The Pac-10 has that terrible deal with Fox Sports that keeps their big games off of ESPN. The Big 12 is in a similar situation. The Big Ten Network does not tend to carry the big games. ABC and ESPN take most of them. If anything, I think it can only help that fans anywhere who get the Big Ten Network can see every Big Ten game.

But you're wrong here in a sense. Take for example the Penn State situation. Over the years, Penn State games were shown all the time on Saturdays. Except for an occasional game with a Youngstown State, ALL their games were shown on local TV In Pennsylvania. Last year I'll bet that only 4 or 5 PSU games were shown locally. Again, the amount of game exposure actually decreased because of the special TV network. And who in other parts of the country, other that Big Ten areas, is subscribing to the Big Ten Network?

I should have said, too, that obviously you are going to get more kids locally than from afar. I'm sure UCLA gets more kids from California than they do Ohio. My point was that there may be a diminishing "reach" of Big Ten schools in terms of their recruiting.

Let's take a look at this twilight zone. Submitted for your approval: the case of Victor Keise, North Brownard Prep WR from Coconut Creek, FL. 6'2", 170 pounds. The kid is committed to Minnesota. He has one offer, and accepted it without hesitation.

You have got to give this Minnesota staff a lot of credit. 3 kids as of right now (in all the Big Ten commits) are from traditional hotbed states, i.e. Texas, Florida, California. 2 of those 3 are committed to Minnesota. The other kid committed to Minnesota is Houston Cypress-Ridge 3-star RB Hasan Lipscomb. Lipscomb had interest from a lot of big schools but only has 1 offer to date: Minnesota. It only took him a month to commit, after receiving the offer and naming a top three. Now, a 3-star RB in Texas has no business going to Minnesota. That kid would definitely (and will definitely) have offers from places like Baylor, Texas Tech, UTEP, TCU, Southern Miss, maybe even Oklahoma State. He's probably not going to get an offer to LSU or Texas. But this kid has decent size and ran a 4.3 forty. I don't know how they did it, but they got a commit from this kid.

Point being: Minnesota has the biggest reach in the Big Ten right now. That probably won't be true in a few months, but I think it says a lot that they are able to get early commits from kids who seem like they have no business in Minneapolis. Why would you give up the weather in Florida to go to Minneapolis? I can see why you'd want out of Houston, but there is no way this kid is not going to get offers from nicer places than Minneapolis, MN as his senior year unfolds.

Shavodrick Beaver is another one. 4-star QB/WR from Wichita Falls, TX commits to Michigan, after only having one offer. This kid is 6'4" 200 lbs. and runs a 4.5 forty. He has huge numbers on the field. But somehow, the local yokels seemingly do not have a place for him. What A&M is doing, recruiting wise, is baffling to me at this point. How do you let a 4-star QB with these stats and this physical presence slip out-of-state without even a slightest fight? Michigan is a great place for him, and I suspect next year's QB battle with him and Newsome is going to be VERY interesting, as Newsome swings in there as the supposed gem they needed. Beaver is very good, and this kid is going to ruin my life for the next 4 years, as he poses such a presence on the field, wherever they line him up.

Last year, Ohio State had ten games covered by ESPN and major networks. Michigan probably had a similar number. This is more than Texas, USC and other majors. Add the Big 10 Network and now all games are available. Penn State may only have 4-5 but they are not as good a program. Just like Arizona State, Missouri and other teams in Penn State's tier probably only had about 4-5. With the Big 10 Network, the other 8-9 games can be seen. If Penn State wants to have 9-10 games televised, then they should win more games, if they want to win more games, they should fire their coach.

We get a great majority, probably missing one or two a week, of Big Ten games here on our basic cable.

I might hate Ohio State, but sometimes Wildcat is right on target.

Here's a quote from Tom Izzo concerning the Big Ten Network AFTER it's first season of covering Big Ten Basketball:
"Beyond dealing with pissed off fans and alumni who can't see the games, it stands to impact recruiting. Players want to play for successful programs, but they also want to play at schools that they know get plenty of TV exposure. If over 1/3 of the games are showing up on a channel no one has, then that's going to take it's toll (on recruiting)". Now I know Izzo is talking about basketball, but the same thing goes for football. Sure schools like Ohio State and Michigan will get their share of exposure, but what about the Indianas and Minnesotas of the conference. Are potential recruits really going to see enough of them to peek their interest, especially kids who aren't local to Big Ten areas?

I dont think the inception of the network was necessarily a bad idea, I just think that they should have waited another year and got the deals worked out with all the cable carriers. I think it might even be beneficial if all the conferences have their own channels, so we can see Maryland and Wake Forest if we want. I'd flip back and forth between a nationally televised game and Tulsa / Tulane, too. They made the stupid mistake of not having those contracts. That's what the problem is. Other than that, I don't think it was a bad idea. But they have got to figure out how to guarantee the local coverage to anyone, even if they don't have Comcast, etc.

And yes, it will definitely have a recruiting impact, both ways.