Battle for No. 1 Starts at Home : Florida Has as Much Prep Football Talent as Anywhere, and Much of It Will Be on Display Tonight With National Championship on Line

By HELENE ELLIOTT

Jan. 2, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

MIAMI —

They come from teeming urban high schools in Miami and from towns that are dots on the map, where sugar cane is the lifeblood but high school football is the soul of the community.

Florida is renowned for its citrus fruit and theme parks, but its most impressive product may be its blue-chip high school football players. An astonishing number of those players stay within its borders, stocking powerhouse programs at Miami, Florida and Florida State that have dominated college football rankings for the past 15 years.

Of the 85 players carried by the Florida State Seminoles, who are the nation’s top-ranked team entering today’s Sugar Bowl, 65 are from the state of Florida. The third-ranked Florida Gators have 72 home-bred players, including Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel of Fort Walton Beach.

“We try to hold the fort down in our state,” said Ronnie Cottrell, Florida State’s recruiting coordinator and tight ends coach. “Our goal is to keep the best players in the state of Florida. There’s generally over 200 players who have signed with Division I schools.”

In the last 20 years, there have been only two post-bowl Associated Press polls in which Florida, Florida State or Miami did not make the top 20. On eight occasions, all of them made it.

“All three really don’t need to recruit outside the state. All three would be great if they recruit only in the state of Florida,” said Jamie Newberg, who has a nationally syndicated TV show, runs a recruiting service and publishes a recruiting newsletter called “Border Wars,” which analyzes high school talent in Florida and Georgia.

“And with the national name all three schools have, they can go to Georgia, Pennsylvania or Texas and get a kid or two. They can say, ‘If you want to be on TV, play in great weather and play for a national championship every year, then come here.’ ”

Said Andy Way of Collegiate Recruiting Services: “I refer to the area between Jacksonville [Florida], Mobile [Alabama] and toward Atlanta as the ‘Golden Triangle’ because there’s an unbelievable amount of football players there. High school football is stressed in the community from a young age. It’s just more of an issue down south than anywhere else. Texas, Florida and California are the big three as far as high school talent.”

Allen Wallace of SuperPrep magazine cited the same states as the prime talent sources for college football. Twenty-two of the 180 kids designated All-Americans by his publication before this season were from Florida and he expects the final number will exceed 30. Last year’s final SuperPrep rankings had 28 Floridians among 235.

The state of Florida always had warm weather on its side, but it has become an especially fertile football source in the last 15 years for many reasons. Among them are a population boom and 20-day spring practice periods that are longer than most other states’ and give players almost another season’s experience by the time they’re seniors. High school coaches say state academic standards are good enough for most kids to qualify to play in college, but Wallace believes even more Floridians would be in college programs if state academic standards were as good as California’s.

“You have more skill athletes in the state of Florida than California. You’re going to see more from Florida that are all-world athletes but aren’t going to qualify,” said Wallace, whose publication is based in Laguna Beach. “I think in California, they take football less seriously. You see more California athletes gravitating toward other sports. Football is more a part of the fabric of life in the South.

“If a kid from Mater Dei High in Santa Ana is going to Notre Dame or Nebraska, everybody says, ‘Congratulations. Have a good time.’ If the same caliber of athlete in Florida says he’s going to Texas or somewhere outside the state, it’s viewed as more of a betrayal.”

Florida’s output has become so bountiful, the state is a regular recruiting stop for Michigan State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Auburn, Kansas State, Alabama, Louisiana State and Ivy League schools.

Tommie Frazier, who led Nebraska to national titles in 1994 and 1995, played at Bradenton’s Manatee High but left home because he wanted to use his running skills, which would have been wasted in the offenses used by Florida and Florida State. But his younger brother, Rod, a highly touted running back at Manatee, recently signed a letter of intent with Florida.

Iowa State found Troy Davis--the nation’s leading rusher the last two seasons--at Miami’s Southridge High and Ohio State got a commitment from Tam Hopkins of Winter Park, the state’s top-rated high school offensive linemen, by telling him he could be the next Orlando Pace.

The hottest in-state battles are waged between Florida and Florida State, because Miami focuses on nearby Dade and Broward counties and does more out-of-state recruiting than the other two, even going to Dana Hills for backup quarterback Scott Covington. All three maintain good relationships with the state’s high school coaches, which makes the instruction better at the high school level and might influence a coach to nudge a kid in a certain direction.

“Ask them for training tapes and you get them right away. Ask to go go clinics, and you can go, even if you don’t have a prospect,” said Sam Budnyk, coach of Cardinal Newman High in West Palm Beach. “You feel like they don’t always want you just when you’ve got the blue-chipper.”

The Gators and Seminoles will go to great lengths to win a player they want. Budnyk, who estimates he has sent 100 players to Division I schools in 38 years of coaching, remembers how ardently Florida wooed Chris Jones, who went to Miami and later to the Philadelphia Eagles.

“The recruiting was just vicious,” Budnyk said. “Coach [Steve] Spurrier came twice. That’s like the mountain coming to Muhammad, him being a former Heisman winner and everything.”

This is a war, and their tactics sometimes seem to be drawn from plot lines in a John LeCarre spy novel.

Two years ago, Reggie McGrew of Mayo High in Florida’s Panhandle verbally committed to Florida State but surprised everyone on signing day when he reneged and signed with Florida. He’s a starting defensive tackle for the Gators. “They snatch kids right before your eyes,” Newberg said.

David Wilson, coach of Lincoln High in Tallahassee, is a Florida State alumnus but he avoids steering kids to his alma mater--as evidenced by his sending offensive tackle Zack Piller to Florida. Wilson, who has coached for 19 years, has seen various types of subterfuge.

“For example, one school may know that a boy is committed to them, but will tell him to go ahead and take the trip to the other school and find out what the other school is doing and saying,” Wilson said. “They’ll spread different rumors that this great running back is going to a different school. University A might put out a rumor that a great running back is going to University B. There’s a lot of gamesmanship going on among them.”

Said Budnyk: “It’s a fierce rivalry from the Panhandle to the Keys. This state is a gold mine for football players, and it’s really come to the forefront in the last decade. High school football is very, very serious in Florida, and there’s no question the success of the three universities and the outstanding coaches at the three universities have helped inculcate these youngsters.”

The pivotal year for Florida high school football was 1979, when Howard Schnellenberger arrived at Miami and declared the populous South Florida counties of Dade, Broward and Palm Beach “the state of Miami,” and vowed to attract the top prospects in that area. That same year, Charley Pell awakened the Gators, who had always finished around .500 but hadn’t won the Southeastern Conference, and Bobby Bowden led Florida State to its first 10-victory season.

With the increased prominence came an increased emphasis on recruiting. Miami still dominates competition in its backyard, but there’s so much talent available throughout the state, the Gators and Seminoles can almost cede that territory to the Hurricanes without fear.

“Miami gets Miami kids,” Newberg said. “Certain schools are like pipelines. Florida has four or five kids from Belle Glades High School, Florida State has a pipeline at Lake Wales and Quincy in the Panhandle. Florida State will try to break a Florida pipeline. Florida and Florida State desperately try to recruit the Miami area because it’s probably the best area for high school football in the south, but the pressure on a Miami kid to go to Miami is tremendous. . . . The talent is so rich, Florida and Florida State can get second-tier kids and still be national powers.”

Cottrell said all three schools look for basically the same traits: athleticism and speed. The Gators got a few kids he wanted, he acknowledged, just as the Seminoles have some Florida had targeted.

“Speed is a big thing here,” Cottrell said. “I think one of the reasons Florida is so successful with high school talent is the weather, and Florida is a great state for track as well. There’s a lot of top track athletes in our state.”

Cottrell said he sells his school’s strengths, rather than harping on a rival’s shortcomings.

“The No. 1 attraction at our school is our head football coach,” Cottrell said. “It’s no secret since Coach Bowden has been here our success has been unmatched. I tell parents that if I had a son who played college football, I’d want him to play for Coach Bowden. Certainly, the opportunity to play for the winningest active bowl coach is a great selling point and there’s his record as a man. He’s been coaching 42 years and here for over 20.”

Wilson believes the philosophies of the big three--which will soon be joined by Division I newcomer Central Florida--vary enough to minimize their head-to-head pursuit of kids. For example, Charlie Ward, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1993 and led Florida State to the national championship, was recruited only by the Seminoles out of Tallahassee Junior College.

“Danny Wuerffel will drop back five steps and throw out of the pocket. He is Coach Spurrier’s NFL [model]. They’re a pure drop-back program,” Wilson said. “Florida State has sort of modeled itself after the 49ers, where the quarterback is more mobile. There you had a kid like Charlie Ward. Miami, when Dennis Erickson was there, liked big, talented kids who took three steps and would stay in there and tough it out.

“As far as the offensive line, Florida recruits big, solid guys, like oak trees. Florida State will recruit a lineman whose movement skills are better. You’re always looking for different needs, so they don’t always go after the same kid. Sometimes you need a lineman, some years you don’t. In most cases they can figure out early on which way a kid is leading.”

Said Budnyk: “Coach Bowden probably generates more reverence and Coach Spurrier more passion. You either love him or hate him. He’s not a bull slinger, and a lot of people don’t like to hear the truth. . . . All my contacts with both of them, they both are very classy. They both are high-powered, but they don’t put each other down.”

Budnyk has a back, Davey Ford, who runs a 4.3 40 on grass and is the state 100-meter champion. The front-runners for his services are Florida State and Florida. No surprise. They’re just keeping that great home-grown talent at home, for some future national championship game.

SWEET DREAMS

Arizona State’s loss almost guarantees that the winner of tonight’s Florida-Florida State rematch in the Sugar Bowl will win the national title.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Making a State-ment

Florida, Florida State and Miami in final AP poll (after bowls)

* 1995--Florida 2, Florida State 4, Miami 20

* 1994--Florida State 4, Miami 6, Florida 7

* 1993--Florida State 1, Florida 5, Miami 15

* 1992--Florida State 2, Miami 3, Florida 10

* 1991--Miami 1, Florida State 4, Florida 7

* 1990--Miami 3, Florida State 4, Florida 13

* 1989--Miami 1, Florida State 3