Talk to Mario Cristobal and he will tell you that recruiting the Houston area is how you round out a program. FIU's top football man has often compared South Florida to no other place other than the 40 miles that surround the nation's third largest city -- Houston.

While the state of Texas has been friendly to the University of Miami, Florida and Florida State through the years, it's the Houston area -- from Galveston to Humble, Fort Bend through to Katy -- that truly resembles the athlete that roams the fields in South Florida every weekend during the season.

After following Northwestern to Dallas last year, and watching a number of North Texas area programs, the south has those football players -- such as Vince Young and Joseph Addai -- that make you look twice, much the way that a Frank Gore or Sean Spence did when they were in high school.

When it comes to stocking the shelves for the NFL, it isn't even close. On opening day of the season, Miami had 34 players on rosters and Fort Lauderdale had 12. Add in the seven or eight from Palm Beach and you have 53. Houston, with all the area's covered, have 46. The next is Detroit with 16.

COVETED TALENT

Each year, some of the most coveted talent comes from the two areas. Last week, while I was in Houston for the Cypress Bay-Katy game, I had the pleasure of checking out teams, players and a few games. Close your eyes and you could be anywhere in Florida when watching Houston area athletes. While the coaches are paid a lot more, everything else is the same. Even the heat and humidity.

Like South Florida, which boasts a number of nationally-rated seniors in this class, Southeastern Texas also features highly-regarded athletes who are among the best in the country.

Players such as Houston Cypress Ridge quarterback Russell Shepard, Houston Eisenhower safety Craig Loston, Clear Creek cornerback Marcus Davis and Pflugerville defensive end Alex Okafor. There is also Fort Bend Hightower quarterback and Miami commit, A.J. Highsmith, a top recruit.

South Florida, as we know, has such impressive talent as Ohio St.-bound running back Jamaal Berry, UM running back commitment Lamar Miller, Palm Beach Central linebacker Jon Bostic, Miramar quarterback Eugene Smith and receiver Duron Carter (St. Thomas Aquinas), who is also headed to Ohio St. -- among several others.

While Katy was 2-2 heading into the game with Cypress Bay, they provided a major obstacle with size and continuity of playing together since youth football. Like many successful programs, especially in strong communities, youth football is the lifeblood of any program, and every Saturday afternoon, teams feeding Katy, run the same offenses and defenses as they do at the high school level. That's how you build tradition.

SCHOOLS DOING WELL

Even though many Texas colleges are hard-pressed to keep to the scholarship with their own area players, the University of Houston has long done well with South Florida players scattered up and down their roster. Since Florida players evaporated from the roster, this is a team that lost that edge.

South Floridians Orlando Iglesias (Coral Park) and Hanik Milligan (Coconut Creek) were a part of the Cougars during successful times. New head coach Kevin Sumlin realizes that, and that's why he had representatives watching Cypress Bay linebackers Phil Walker, Shane Gordon and Austin Gamble. Defensive back Josh Smith, running back Jason Douglas and junior offensive lineman Joseph McNamara were players several scouts on hand were impressed by as well.

Join the discussion

Note: If this is your first time using our NEW commenting system, you will have to LOG OUT and then LOG BACK IN.

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.CommentBody@

@Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@