Did you guys know that Deke Cooper didn't have any big time scholarship offers before the state game? He was good enough to start for Lou Holtz as a fr, but he wasn't good enough for IU or Purdue to find him. Holtz contacted him after the state finals to offer him a scholarship. I take a look this year, at the Cathedral kids going to IU. Now I don't want to judge a kid from one game, but are you telling me IU would rather give Kyle Kennedy a scholarship over Cuda or Matt?

If you look at the recruits on rivals/scout over 85% of them are from the Indy Ft Wayne area. Besides the fact Indy and Ft Wayne are the two biggest cities in the state, there must be more to it then that. Evansville has had a hard time getting kids to the next level for a long time. Kendell O'donell and Durenzo Bushrod both ran 4.5's and had better stats then the Ft Wayne Luers rb Kenny Mullins thats going to IU. How about Zack Barrett? He was 6'5 200 pounds and was one of the all round best atheltes in the state, but he wasn't good enough to play football for IU?

Do you guys think the scouts just completley overlook this area. I know that I've been watching local football for a while now and I have been going to the state finals since the mid 90's and I think Matt(Mac) is probably the 2nd best(James Banks) football player I've seen for at least 10 years or so. Now you need to keep in mind, I've seen Matt play 15 to 20 times, and I don't get to see the Indy and Ft Wayne kids as much.

I wonder if the scouts only recruit the mid to northern part of the state because of the souths lack of titles. What do you guys think about this?

Don't you know??? According to central and northern Indiana, football is not played south of Monroe County. And everyone always wants to know why we down here in southern Indiana always play the disrespect card. Because it is true.

(I'm sure Coach Holtz was thinking Deke was going to Bloomington North, not Evansville North. LOL.)

I don't know what we have to do to get some of our local talent noticed. I just think its crazy that 2009/2010 Cathedral classes according to scout have 5 d1 players, but yet Reitz has 1? Now I'm talking about kids that are committed or kids that graduated last year that are on a d1 roster with full ride scholarship. I think I read in the footballdigest book they had 8 kids from last year team go d1 or d2. If this is the case 6 of them were sick I guess when they played Reitz last year. This isn't a bash on Cathedral so please don't take it that way. I just didn't see that much super star talent last year in the bowl in the semi-state game.

I think Evansville is off the radar.

Playing in the Papa Johns game will help the credibility of our area. I think the main reason why is because there is not a Division 1 program in the immediate area. We have to be the largest metropolitan region in the country that doesn't have a D1 football program. Another state title run would help as well!

I agree Evansville doesn't get the looks. I also believe it doesn't help when kids get the chance to go to IU and quit, such is the case of some former Panthers.

You do have to keep in mind the number of schools when comparing. Marion County (Indianapolis proper) has 25 football-playing high schools, compared to Vanderburgh County's 7. When you throw in adjoining counties (suburbs) the Indy metro area has 55 football playing high-schools (34 are 4A/5A including a dozen or so that are twice the size as even our biggest schools) compared to the Evansville metro area's 16 schools (only 6 of which are 4A/5A counting Henderson). So on numbers alone you'd expect Indy metro to have approx 5x-6x as many recruits. Throw in the fact that a scout can watch 2-3 games per weekend between 2 high-quality teams without driving much (meanwhile Central schedules schools like 2A Providence and Christian Academy of KY as their non-conf opponents when they already have 3 schools that are 2A/3A within conference) and it starts to make more sense that scouts would lean to high-density areas. Of course nowadays the kids' summer combine performances, if they attend, are taken into consideration heavily, but it's not like basketball or baseball where colleges can watch a lot of film from travel leagues or AAU teams - for football the only live game film comes from the 9-10 game high school season.

I do agree though that on the surface it seems like some Reitz kids have been overlooked or undervalued the last few years. But it's not the lack of D-1 football schools in the area though as none of Ft.Wayne, St.Louis, Cleveland, Peoria, Milwaukee, etc have any D-1 football schools more nearby than Louisville, IU, Vandy, Western KY and so forth are to us.

Tony Ewers was just as good as ted Karres from Cathedral who signed with IU. The summer combines will make you or break you. Now we all know who is a better football player between Haywood and Cuda. But you know what Haywood can do that Cuda can't? Haywoods runs a 4.4, so after the combines this summer he is getting recruited by everybody thats good vs Cuda who might run a 4.6 on a good day getting recruited by Ball St and Western. I think game play is a lot more important then 40 times. My point is, combines give a fast kid who might not be as good of a player the oppurtunity to shine a little more.