Florida has become a huge ACC recruiting state

[GT Ace]

This season's Top 100 in Florida from Rivals.com shows that out of the 1st 37 commits a whopping 28 are to ACC schools. FSU & Mia are taking whoever they want from the Sunshine State, but Clemson & Wake Forest have 3 each. Ga Tech has 2 with Duke getting 1.
Out of the 9 non-ACC commits only 6 are to the SEC, 2 to Big10 with 1 West Virginia. The 6 SEC commits are spread out as follows; 2 Auburn, & 1 each to Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina & Georgia.
Many folks thought that Fla St would bring a big, big state of Florida following when they joined the Atlantic Coast Conference. The true, huge jump in ACC commits from the Southern state appears to have occurred with the arrival of Miami & the rivalry between the Seminoles & Hurricanes.
I never expected this large of a discrepency between the ACC & all other conferences. It's almost a dream come true for the ACC. Why do u think the state of Florida has gone so intensly pro ACC?

http://rivals100.rivals.com/viewrank.asp?ra_key=1853&Year=2008

 

[GTland03]

because UF took pretty much the whole top 100 in last years class!!

 

[manjano mdudu]

Florida, with its huge population, has long been the top state in the southeastern US for football recruiting. While Georgia will generate around 100 D1 prospects each year, FL will produce about 300. With the scholarships limits, they all can't get in UM, FSU and UF, hence, the feeding frenzy by other schools. In recent years UF has grabbed the top players (both in-state and nationwide) with the other two fighting for their share. Since 2 of those 3 are ACC schools, it would stand to reason that the ACC would end up with more commitments from that state. The fact that FL is now able to cherry-pick athletes from across the country also leaves some talent in FL for others to come grab.
As for other schools, UGA gets mostly instate players and doesn't have to overly recruit there and we've (and I believe mistakenly) focused excessively on recruiting out of state where the odds of success are longer, which accounts for our program's decline in recent years. Only when we started bringing focus again on in-state recruiting have we seen the quality of our signees improve. Many of the smaller or 2nd tier schools in the ACC are also in our position and where they are unable to dominate their geographic regions in recruiting and must search elsewhere for talent, which may frequently account for their search for the FL players that their state's big 3 don't select.
Of course northern schools, and we now have a couple in the conference, frequently stress "the need for speed" in order to be competitive with southern schools. This frequently used expression is nothing but a cover for them saying they need more black players, and Florida is a good place to come down and get some.