Focus Areas for Recruiting

Much has been conjectured about BYU not landing top Utah recruits (i.e. Masina, Empey, Gustin, etc.) but not all of these players seem to want or fit into the BYU mold. However, this does not mean BYU is whiffing on other recruits. They still seem to be pulling in a fair number from Cali, some from UT, AZ, OR, WA but more from TX. I found this interesting summary from Jay Drew (SL Trib) quoting Martzen as saying BYU is:



"definitely" targeting Texas more than ever before, trying to take advantage of some contacts that receivers coach Guy Holliday has in the Lone Star State, especially the Metroplex. BYU has commitments from receivers Micah Simon of Bishop Dunne High School and Akile Davis of DeSoto High and running back Charles West of Coppell High and is still pursuing a few others from Texas. Coach Holliday has really opened up a new pipeline for us that has been amazing. I mean, the best high school football in the country is played in Dallas, Texas, and we expect to pull a handful of kids out of there this year, which will be huge for us."



None of the those TX committed recruits are LDS which indicates that BYU is expanding the net to attract talent and represents a new focus on recruiting athletes who like the entire package (standards, ESPN TV package and opponents, coaching staff, academics, etc.) that BYU offers.



It will be interesting to see who the final 7-8 commits will be given that Martzen stated that they want to fill the 25 scholarship offer.

Coach Holliday has been great for recruiting and for BYU. His twitter account is fun to watch.

I still think BYU should be focusing on in state recruits more than they have been. Part of the problem Utah's basketball team had with Giacoletti and Boylen was not recruiting locally. They tried to "broaden" their recruiting zone and BYU and USU picked up the good local players, and dominated the Utes for most of that time.



Have to win battles in your own back yard for players. And while I'm not all that concerned about losing the Empey's and Covey's of the world ("legacy recruits"), we do need to at least be even in-state.

From a 30,000' view, it looks like BYU is focusing on regional talent (best impact) to fill immediate needs and targeting select local talent as position depth necessitates. I believe they will look more favorably on 3-star talent from Dallas region compared to Utah and Salt Lake Counties. Case in point being the listed star value for Karoma vs actual results on field (he was freshman All-American) and had knock on him that he was undersized. However, it was clear that the pancake blocks he was making was against upper tier level talent from Dallas area. Bottom line, We will lose some in-state recruits but make up for it with out-of-state talent.



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