NEW ORLEANS — The sweet spot in college football recruiting is the five-hour car ride in any direction from campus. The player's family leaves home at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, arrives at 11, tailgates and is ready for kickoff at 1, 2, 3:30, 7. It is a swell deal if you are an SEC program because you have a bountiful harvest of high school players in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.
If you are Ohio State and factories have shut down in your neighborhood and jobs have been lost and families have relocated to the Sun Belt, the sweet spot is still Ohio and western Pennsylvania, but it is a less fertile sweet spot. Your recruiting needs wings, not wheels. You have to get into the South.
Urban Meyer and Ohio State can put some wings on their recruiting Thursday night against Alabama.
Here in the backyard of the SEC bully, the Buckeyes can get recruits in the South to look away from 'Bama and Florida and LSU and Georgia, not to mention Florida State. The speedy guys who thought they had to showcase for the NFL in the SEC are going to look at Meyer's spread on offense and his sub-packages on defense of 3-3-5 alignments and open the door when the Buckeyes knock.
This is a big deal Thursday night for Meyer. He won two national titles at Florida, and he is 36-3 at Ohio State, but his brand is still No. 2 to Nick Saban and Alabama. He was on that top-shelf of college football from 2006-2009, but he got bumped off by a health crisis. For years the Alabama fandom has insisted it was Saban who made Meyer sick.
On Thursday night, Meyer can hop back on the pedestal. He has a three-hour window.
Meyer already recruited All-American defensive end Joey Bosa away from Alabama two years ago. Bosa, who is from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had even gone to a summer camp at Alabama and said he was mesmerized by Saban and the office door Saban can close with the push of his button from his desk.
The Alabama coach has a pet pitch for recruits: Make a 40-year decision, not a four-year decision, when choosing a school. Meyer uses the same tactic, and he, not Saban, landed Bosa.
"I knew it was going to be a short period in my life and I'm going to have the rest of my life to live where I want, do what I want," Bosa said. "This is the most important years of my life to set up my future. The weather doesn't matter. It matters what's the best fit for me, and I felt Ohio State was that place."
On getting into the South to fill out the Ohio State roster and get speed, Bosa said of Meyer, "He's talented enough as a recruiter to get whoever he wants. He'll be doing that as long as he is here."
Bosa said his brother and some friends who are football players have made visits to Ohio State. You get the impression the rock that was being pushed uphill against the SEC mountain of seven straight national titles is starting to get a little lighter.
Vonn Bell is a sophomore from Rossville, Georgia. Meyer snatched him out of Saban's grasp too. Bell is the ambassador of speed from the South.
"You always want speed. That's what he always talks about, speed and power," Bell said. "Fast guys, react. Speed wins the game. That's what he wants. A number of (fast) guys thought about it but wanted to stay home. It's hard to say no to Alabama and Coach Saban. The overriding factor is Coach Meyer. He is a very winning guy."
Bell thought more about speed as the calling card of football in the South. He didn't want to knock football in the Midwest, but…
"It's a couple good (fast) guys in Ohio—I can't down my guys, they look out for me," he said. "I guess we (Southern players) bring a little more to the table. We got speed."
Raekwon McMillan, a freshman linebacker from Hinesville, Georgia, was sold on Ohio State as a 40-year home not 4-year home, just like Bosa. Life after football is better in the scarlet red of Ohio State than the crimson red of Alabama.
McMillan had his pick of SEC schools, and he went with Meyer. Several other stars considered it and had the Buckeyes high on their list: Lorenzo Carter (Norcross, Georgia), a freshman at Georgia, thought about it; so did Deshaun Watson (Gainesville, Georgia). He went to Clemson and is the future quarterback.
"It's 10 hours from home to Columbus so my family has to pick which games to come to or they watch on TV," McMillan said. "The others, I think, did not want their families to go so far."
In the South, the families cherish the time in the stands on Saturdays with their football players. It is a special time of togetherness, and that makes it hard to get players to go to college 10 hours from home. The family can't get there easily because of time and expense.
That's why autonomy for major Division I schools could be a good thing for Ohio State. Suppose the extra amount of money schools can give players is slid toward family travel? What if the players who are in need are also allowed to keep their $5,700 a year in Pell Grant money?
Meyer will have to recruit the South even harder now, with Michigan's Jim Harbaugh slicing into Meyer's recruiting base in the Midwest.
But when you walk out on to lush Bermuda grass in November in the South and it is still 68 degrees and the sun is shining, how do you put your feet in the frost in Ohio?
Meyer, who is from Ohio, just shrugged and said, "Once in awhile you get a little bit of weather." He smiled.
And if a player is more worried about the Bermuda grass than job opportunities after school? "We probably don't want them," Meyer said.
Not all Ohio State players have had a positive recruiting experience with Meyer. The coach made a really bad impression on tight end Jeff Heuerman when Meyer was still at Florida. Heuerman, who is from Naples, Florida, was recruited by LSU but not the Gators. He made a visit to Florida anyway.
"I met him," Heuerman said. "I wasn't a highly rated tight end coming out. Slow white kid from Naples, Florida. I met him and it was, 'Hey, how you doing. See ya. I got practice to go to.'"
Does he remind Meyer?
"Just about every day."
Mostly, Meyer gets it right on recruits, and he has the right idea of going south to find difference-makers and fill in some holes.
The Sugar Bowl can showcase so much for Ohio State. The blue-chip recruits who come out of the South can see for themselves that the Buckeyes have some explosiveness to their offense. They average 45 points a game, but you can bet the recruit in the South has been brainwashed to believe the Big Ten plays plodding football. Recruits from Atlanta to Orlando will see that the SEC is not the only league that plays with speed.
More important, a win Thursday night can show those recruits in Georgia, Florida, perhaps Texas that Meyer can stand toe-to-toe with Saban and that the idea the Alabama coach scared him out of the SEC was just foolish.
Ray Glier covers college football for Bleacher Report.
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