Tightwad Hill

A MAP OF 2007 RECRUITING

Map GameDay is a fun site that uses Google's mapping software, tailored to the CFB fan. You can select maps of university cities, complete with tags for the stadium, local points of interest, lodging, entertainment, etc. For those inclined to make the Colorado State roadie, here's a map of majestic Fort Collins.

MGD has also done a nice job with 2007 recruiting, giving users an interface that allows you to see the hometowns of recruits for an individual school or conference. To save you the hassle, here are the links to the '07 classes for Pac-10 schools: Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington and Washington State. Here's the entire Pac-10 conference in one tidy package.

As you can see from the links, Stanford is the only conference school that truly recruits on a national basis; this is one reason Cal rarely goes head to head with the Cardinal for a player. Everyone else stays pretty close to home, with the exception of USC's 5-star raids and a new national flavor to Arizona State's recruiting under Dennis Erickson.

What's really interesting is the low number of high D-1A prospects from the Bay Area this year. According to MGD, Bay Area schools sent only 24 3-star and above players to BCS conference teams this year and 10 of them were Jucos. The breakdown of where they went is both interesting and reassuring to Cal fans. The names are segregated by Scout.com star ratings; those players offered by Cal are in bold type.

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Alesana Alesana, OT (CCSF) Kansas State
Jahvid Best
Devin Bishop
Mike Calvin
Brandon Carswell, WR (Milpitas HS) USC
Alex Lagemann
Zach Lee, QB (CCSF) Nebraska
Kenny O'Neal, WR (CCSF) Tennessee
Josh Riddell, QB (Foothill JC) Mississippi State
Steve Sloan, LB (Archbishop Mitty HS, San Jose) UCLA
Austin Stafford, LB (Hayward HS) Nebraska
Matt Summers-Gavin
Joseph Townsend, DT (Foothill JC b/w Valley Christian HS, San Jose) Nebraska

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Tonio Celotto, DL (Piedmont HS) Oregon
Mike Cole, OL (Foothill JC) Oregon State
Durrell Clark-James, CB (CCSF) Minnesota
Rhett Ellison, TE (St. Francis, Mountain View) USC
Willie Griffin, RB (McClymonds HS, Oakland) Washington
Roy Helu, FB (San Ramon Valley HS - Danville) Nebraska
Mike Marcisz, OT (Granada HS - Livermore) Arizona State
Kevin Lopina, QB (De La Salle HS) Washington State
Ako Poti, OT (CCSF) Penn State
De'Shon Sanders, CB (CCSF) Texas Tech
Logan Uu, LB (Laney JC) Minnesota

Several things from this - we only offered seven Bay Area players from this list and landed five. That's pretty impressive. Also, Oregon got but one guy (who Cal didn't offer). That's in part because it was a down year for Bay Area talent, but it's also because Cal has solidified its control of a region that used to serve as the Ducks' backyard: the Ducks offered MSG, Best, Calvin and Lagemann. Since 2004, when Oregon landed the highly-touted De La Salle triplets (Colvin, Glasper and Bates), the Ducks have not landed a single Bay Area recruit who was offered by both Oregon and Cal. The LA schools are a different story, but Cal is still holding its own in head-to-head battles with both UCLA and USC. The Trojans get Carswell and Josh Tatum ('06), Cal gets Derrick Hill, Jahvid Best and MSG.

You can also select states and see which D-1A players they produced this year (and where they're going). Alaska? Exactly one D-1A prospect, who's heading to Oklahoma State. Another fun fact: Only 22% of California players signed with a California school. Here's the California map.

Hope you enjoy the site; a mercifully brief WSU hoops preview coming tomorrow.

posted by Tightwad @ 4:32 PM