Is It In You?

Captain Eclectic, the House Rock Built's house council and trusted consiglieri, pointed out an interesting fact about this year's recruiting haul while he was bailing me out of the clink for yet another [alleged] DUI. Charlie Weis reminded everyone during today's press conference that this year's class includes an unbelievable nine Gatorade Players of the Year for their home state. For those of you keeping track at home, Weis earned himself a record-setting 143 Electoral Votes this morning. The green states are the ones we're calling for Notre Dame:

State	Gatorade POY	Electoral Votes
New York	Eric Olsen, OL	31
Florida	Sam Young, OL	27
Illinois	Demetrius Jones, QB	21
Georgia	Morrice Richardson, LB	15
Massachusets	Barry Gallup, WR	12
Indiana	Luke Schmidt, FB	11
Missouri	Munir Prince, RB	11
Minnesota	Matt Carufel, OL	10
Nevada	Jashaad Gaines, S	5
Total:		143

Honorable mention to Joe Paterno and Pete Carroll, the only two coaches who managed to land a pair of Gatorade Players of the Year. Paterno takes home 34 electoral votes (Pennsylvania - 21, Virginia - 13) and Carroll takes up the rear with 26 electorates (New Jersey - 15, Washington - 11).

Just one more interesting stat: Of the GPOY's who have signed Letters of Intent to play Division 1 ball, 42% of them went to school in-state (I counted Idaho's Cody Hawkins as in-state, since he's going to Boulder with his old man). As we saw with the epic Mitch Mustain saga, there is an overwhelming pressure on these prized prospects to stay in-state, which makes Weis' pilfering of star recruits from some of the juiciest football territories that much more impressive. We'll do some more analysis in the upcoming days, but tonight we're just celebrating. Slainte!