USC coach Lane Kiffin was interviewed by San Diego radio host Darren Smith last week and asked if he could win only with California players?
“You could,” Kiffin said. “That really is our number one goal. We talk about the ‘state of SC.’ You say what area is that? That’s the whole state of California. We’ve got to control the whole state. What that means is that we have to work really hard to evaluate all the kids out there that we are getting the kids to our camp and that we are not missing on kids.
“And then we want to go add great players out of state. Our philosophy is that when we go out of state, we better be getting potential first round picks. Actually, I believe that six of our last 11 All-Americans have been from out of state.”
Chip Kelly, Chris Petersen or Mike Reilly would answer that question with a simple “YES”.
And it would make for a BORING radio interview…the follow-up question would be why or why not…but tell us please, why would Boise St University want to provide so many educational opportunities to out of state athletes?
The question for Lane Kiffin should be can HE win games?
YES, there have been lots of All Americans over the years from outside the state. Guys like Cushing, Jarrett, Williams, Baker, White, etc. But there is also a nice list of in state guys like Bush, Leinart, Smith, Sanchez, Maualuga, Palmer and Polamalu.
My problem is the misses on out of state guys that didn’t win and weren’t first round picks. Names like Booty, McKnight, Moody, Turner, Griffin and Mays come rushing forward.
I’m not saying that these kids were bad kids to have, but the way they were handled and the subsequent lack of production and more so, lack of national championships, is what is troubling. Some questions come to mind:
Could USC have won with Sanchez as a red shirt sophomore?
Would it have been better just to play Stafon Johnson and CJ Gable all this time instead of wasting touches on McKnight and Moody?
Choosing Patrick Turner over DeSean Jackson (apparently we wouldn’t give Jackson the coveted #1 jersey) was probably the biggest recruiting screw up that I can remember. If you replace Turner with a super-electric Jackson for those two years after Bush left and we may have won a few more championships (possibly beat Texas in the NC, probably beat Fucla in the dreaded 13-9 game, and most definitely beat Stanford the next year)
Florida should thank its lucky stars Pete Carroll had a tendency to lay an egg against beatable opponents, or they may have zero championships this decade. (LSU too)