Published: August 27, 2008 10:58 pm      

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Turner taps into Texas

The state of Texas is 268,820 square miles of football fanaticism. According to ESPN’s new high school sports Web site, ESPNRISE.com, “no state plays more football with more athletes moving on to the next level than Texas.”

Colleges in the Northeast have traditionally had trouble convincing Texans to come up and play in colder, less football-crazed climates. Smaller schools like those in the Mid-American Conference face an even bigger challenge.

The first thing Turner Gill does is reach out to the high school coaches in Texas he knows so well. “They can tell me the truth,” Gill says, “about whether they’re going to leave the state. That’s the No. 1 step.”

Gill has had remarkable success in the nation’s biggest recruiting hotbed since taking over the University at Buffalo football program. Heading into tonight’s season opener against the visiting University of Texas-El Paso, the Bulls have nine Lone Star Staters on the roster, and a recruit who didn’t qualify academically but intends to enroll at UB in January. The other 11 schools in the MAC have a total of 15 Texans.

Even accounting for Gill’s native status in Fort Worth, Texas, as well as his noted recruiting prowess, many people have asked the third-year coach how he’s able to lure prospects more than 1,500 miles away from the birthplace of “Friday Night Lights.”

The answer? Relationships. The ones Gill developed during his 13 years as a Nebraska assistant, and the ones he tries to establish with recruits.

“Once I find out if a particular person is willing to leave the state, then I’m on them,” Gill says. “I get them on our campus, and it’s always better than they anticipate, seeing our staff, seeing our players, and seeing what we have to offer.”

Fertile territory

More than 1,200 Texans enter the Division I ranks every year, according to ESPN. The state has produced 23 NFL Hall of Famers and seven Heisman Trophy winners. At nationally-ranked programs Texas and Texas Tech, 91 percent of the players are homegrown.

El Paso may be closer to Arizona and California than some of the bigger cities in Texas, but 60 percent of the Miners’ roster consists of in-state talent.

Coach Mike Price played and coached at Washington State (and notoriously held the top job at Alabama for a few months) before coming to UTEP in 2004. He quickly learned Texas has a unique passion for football.

“Football in Texas is just so important to people,” Price says. “So when you get a kid from Texas, you’re getting one whose well-coached, stronger, and maybe cares a little more than somebody from another part of the country.”

Gill has built the foundation for a winning program at UB on players from New York and its surrounding states. Quarterback Drew Willy hails from New Jersey, top offensive weapons James Starks and Naaman Roosevelt are Western New Yorkers, and Davonte Shannon, who at the end of his freshman season became the program’s only first-team all-conference performer in nine years, came from Pennsylvania.

Only three of the Bulls’ nine Texans have earned letters — cornerback Josh Thomas, running back Brandon Thermilus and receiver Terrell Jackson. Two of the others are sophomores who redshirted last season, and the rest are freshman.

Yet, nobody is foolish enough to question Texas’ reputation for cultivating elite talent.

“They’re called the speed states for a reason,” says Willy, who spent three summers as a child in El Paso, where his father managed a golf course. “Even though they’re young, I think you’ll see a lot of the Texas guys come out and have big years.”

Thomas, who also competes as a sprinter for the UB track team, started four games as a freshman and will line up opposite St. Joe’s product Domonic Cook tonight. Thermilus, the son of former NFL running back Alonzo Highsmith, is slated to be Starks’ primary backup, and Jackson is listed on the initial depth chart as the No. 4 receiver.

“Terrell has tremendous speed,” Willy says. “He has big-play ability, and he played the QB position in high school, so he understands some of the things I see out there.”

Opportunity is key

Gill says location often matters little to players when they’re choosing a college. He chose Nebraska simply because he wanted to play for Tom Osborne. “If coach Osborne was at Colorado or Syracuse,” Gill says, “I probably would’ve went there.”

Similarly, the Texans on UB’s roster came to Buffalo because they wanted to play for Gill. “Play” is the operative word.

“They want to know they are going to play, not necessarily right away, but during their four years,” Gill says. “And they see a team on the rise, and they want to be a part of that. To be part of something special, there’s always something about being the first. A lot of young men, they get enticed by that.”

Jackson says he new nothing of the city of Buffalo, or its biggest university, before he came to visit.

“To me, Buffalo was directly correlated with snow,” he says. “But I could’ve been recruited to go to Asia, and if the academics were good, and the football, and the staff, I’d go there.”

•••

UB’S LONE STARS

Texans recruited to Buffalo by Fort Worth native Turner Gill.

• Terrell Jackson, So., WR

• Alan Hayes, R-Fr., DB

• Josh Thomas, So., DB

• Ed Young, R-Fr., WR

• Ray Anthony Long, Fr., LB

• Brandon Thermilus, So., RB

• Graham Whinery, Fr., OL

• Joel Wilson, Fr., DT

• Terry Peden, Fr., LB

THE REST OF THE MAC

The Bulls have more players from Texas on the roster than the rest of their division combined.

East

• Akron — 1

• Bowling Green — 2

• Kent State — 0

• Miami — 2

• Ohio — 3

• Temple — 1

West

• Ball State — 2

• Central Michigan — 1

• Eastern Michigan — 1

• Northern Illinois — 0

• Toledo — 1

• Western Michigan — 1