Recruiting in-state not the problem for USD football

After the SDSU-USD rivalry football game, Coyote head coach Joe Glenn kept his press conference shorter than usual.

“We just aren’t good enough,” he said about his program.

That’s what a 37-14 score was telling him.

Three days later, I was back home for Thanksgiving break. I was the only University of South Dakota representative among a few SDSU alumni. Football was an easy subject at the dinner table.

I’ve heard the comments for the last two years, but fans on both sides believe USD isn’t recruiting well enough in-state.

Currently, SDSU football has 24 players from South Dakota on its roster, while USD has 14.

But the lack of South Dakota natives is not a USD problem, it’s a talent problem.

When USD jumped to Division I to compete with SDSU, the number of South Dakota natives found on its roster dropped. In fact, from 2007 to 2014, it was cut in half from 28 in-staters on the team in 2007 to the 14 USD has today.

When I think of program-changing players in recent years at each school, SDSU’s would be Dale Moss and Zach Zenner.

At USD, fans think of Tyler Starr and Will Powell.

And many of these top talents — like Zenner and Starr —  are not even from the state. The idea that there is a competition to recruit in-state is misguided.

To win games against one another, USD and SDSU shouldn’t be going to win players from the South Dakota recruiting turf. They should be going to win Minnesota and Iowa turf.

When looking where recruits are coming from, USD football is recruiting area states at an even rate with SDSU.

Only 48 players on the football roster are from outside South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa or Nebraska. SDSU has 46 players from outside those five states.

The difference between the two schools is recruits grew up with SDSU as the better program.

It’s only going to change with winning, and winning won’t come from recruiting South Dakota.