The state of Notre Dame football.

[Thremp]

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A disproportionate amount of the speed is in Florida and California.

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This is completely retarded. Its even more retarded if you want to make an argument that black people are faster than white people.

[Dudd]

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A disproportionate amount of the speed is in Florida and California.

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This is completely retarded. Its even more retarded if you want to make an argument that black people are faster than white people.

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I just looked up track and field results, as those should be as pure a measure of speed as anything, and of the top 16 names listed for the 100 and 200 in 2006, only 1 comes from a school above the Mason-Dixon line, Wisconsin. Same thing for 2005, one kid from Wisconsin and 1 from California. Now this is just their school and not their hometown, so I guess it's possible that southern schools are track powers and recruit from all over the country, but I highly doubt it. For whatever reason, southern speed is real.

[NozeCandy]

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I guess it's possible that southern schools are track powers and recruit from all over the country, but I highly doubt it

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How is this not possible if they are the established track powers?

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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I honestly don't think you can compare ND to USC or Texas, or whatever massive program. The schools are just so different. People go to USC to play in the NFL. Plain and simple.

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Notre Dame is as massive a program as there is, they just aren't a very good one right now. top recruits will go to w/e school gives them the best chance at the NFL. that used to be ND/Penn State, then Florida, now it's USC, etc etc.

ND has the resources, name, and everything else required to be a top program.

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This is the same delusion that afflicts Alabama fans. The world is different now. Most high school recruits can barely remember a time when ND was competing for National Championships. They could care less about teams from the 60s and 70s, Touchdown Jesus, Ara Parseghian, Knute Rockne, waking up the echoes, that stupid leprechaun, etc.

Team speed is a bigger part of the college game than it used to be. A disproportionate amount of the speed is in Florida and California. Kids from FL and CA do not want to move to South Bend, especially when they can go to Florida or USC.

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then explain how Weis has got 2 strong classes in a row

[MiloDanglers]

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A disproportionate amount of the speed is in Florida and California.

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This is completely retarded. Its even more retarded if you want to make an argument that black people are faster than white people.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just looked up track and field results, as those should be as pure a measure of speed as anything, and of the top 16 names listed for the 100 and 200 in 2006, only 1 comes from a school above the Mason-Dixon line, Wisconsin. Same thing for 2005, one kid from Wisconsin and 1 from California. Now this is just their school and not their hometown, so I guess it's possible that southern schools are track powers and recruit from all over the country, but I highly doubt it. For whatever reason, southern speed is real.

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I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Arkansas is one of the best Track and Field programs in the nation. They don't only recruit around the U.S. but the world. Their sprinters include Maryland, New York, Ireland, and Arizona. They also have people from Jamaica, Australia and Kenya.

All the strong track programs are in the south because of the weather. Same thing with baseball programs.

Southern speed is a dumb concept. Florida, Texas and Cali are the best states to recruit from because they are three of the most populated states in the U.S. They just happen to have warm weather. Recruiting is a numbers game. That is why Ohio and Penn produce a decent amount of recruits. Lots of people live there.

[FlyWf]

The southern speed thing stems back from the late 80s and early 90s when Midwestern schools were slow to adapt to innovations in football strategy. They didn't know how to use their fast guys and they didn't recruit for speed. Also they wouldn't play a black guy at QB if their life depended on it.

That's no longer true. Oklahoma looked quite a bit faster than Miami. Oregon, from what I've seen, appears to be very fast(caveat: Lloyd Carr). Ohio State has been a fast team for like a decade now.

[Thremp]

The southern speed thing comes from the fact that people of Western African decent are faster than people from other places. These people live in the South.

But to apply it to college football programs who pull all over the nation and pull top talent from all over is somewhat asinine. I wouldn't be surprised to see Grambling or AL State to be much faster than a larger school like Minn.

[shemp]

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You are aware that Purdue and Michigan State had more highly ranked recruiting classes Ty's last two years than ND did?

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You're getting three touchdowns from Purdue, and it's Ty's fault-- even though, by the very metric you proposed, ND has out recruited Purdue over the relevant time period.

[Rococo]

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A disproportionate amount of the speed is in Florida and California.

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This is completely retarded. Its even more retarded if you want to make an argument that black people are faster than white people.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just looked up track and field results, as those should be as pure a measure of speed as anything, and of the top 16 names listed for the 100 and 200 in 2006, only 1 comes from a school above the Mason-Dixon line, Wisconsin. Same thing for 2005, one kid from Wisconsin and 1 from California. Now this is just their school and not their hometown, so I guess it's possible that southern schools are track powers and recruit from all over the country, but I highly doubt it. For whatever reason, southern speed is real.

[/ QUOTE ]

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Arkansas is one of the best Track and Field programs in the nation. They don't only recruit around the U.S. but the world. Their sprinters include Maryland, New York, Ireland, and Arizona. They also have people from Jamaica, Australia and Kenya.

All the strong track programs are in the south because of the weather. Same thing with baseball programs.

Southern speed is a dumb concept. Florida, Texas and Cali are the best states to recruit from because they are three of the most populated states in the U.S. They just happen to have warm weather. Recruiting is a numbers game. That is why Ohio and Penn produce a decent amount of recruits. Lots of people live there.

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I should have included Texas, and I should have been more precise. Florida, California and Texas produce more fast football players (and more good football players in general) than other states with similar population. I just looked on Scout. For each of the last two years, 22 of the top 50 recruits were from FL, CA and TX. That has to be disproportionate to the populations. FWIW, I think that weather is a huge factor, and also the fact that those states are comparatively affluent, and thus tend to have better facilities, than neighboring states.

[Dudd]

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I guess it's possible that southern schools are track powers and recruit from all over the country, but I highly doubt it

[/ QUOTE ]How is this not possible if they are the established track powers?

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Here's the geographical breakdown of the top 8 100 meter sprinters from 2006.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Name School Home state

1. Xavier Carter LSU Florida
2. Walter Dix Florida St. Florida
3. Demi Omole Wisconsin Wisconsin/born in Nigeria
4. Travis Padgett Clemson North Carolina
5. Jamaal Charles Texas Texas
6. Churandy Martina UTEP Netherlands Antilles
7. Tyrone Edgar Texas A&amp;M England
8. Leroy Dixon South Carolina Indiana
</pre><hr />

4 kids from the South, 2 from outside the US, 1 from the North, and 1 who immigrated from Africa to the North. Is it a perfect scientific study, of course not, but the evidence is pretty compelling that world class speed originates primarily from the South.