For decades, the state of Florida has been one of college football’s richest recruiting territories. As college football’s top programs have become more aware of just how loaded Florida is with premier talent, keeping elite in-state prospects home has become more difficult than ever.
The phrase “building a fence around the state” used to be the golden rule of college football recruiting in Florida. During the peak years of legendary coaches Bobby Bowden, Steve Spurrier and Jimmy Johnson, the Big 3 programs — Florida Florida State and Miami — had a stranglehold on in-state talent. If you were an elite recruit from South Florida, Orlando, Tampa or Jacksonville, staying home was practically a given.
Today, that fence has wide-open gates.
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Excluding Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy prospects who are originally from other states due to the program’s national boarding-school makeup, we took a look at the year-over-year data to answer the definitive question: How well are Florida’s Big 3 programs doing at keeping top Sunshine State talent home?
