Yes. The football talent in high school in the United States has shifted dramatically to the South, and most of it wants to stay close to home when going to college. That will continue to give the SEC a strong advantage in football from now on. Within the South, the strongest concentration of high school football talent is in the South Atlantic (Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia). I think you should be able to figure out what other conference is located in these states to compete with the SEC for the recruits. It is not the Big Ten. In the Big Ten footprint, there are some recruits in the states you indicate, but the highest concentration is Ohio. And even regarding Ohio, the south has stronger talent. If you want analysis on it, here is some:
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_...outh-shift-more-even-distribution-decades-ago
The ACC has a bright future ahead of it in football given that it does overlap these areas with the SEC. It's up to the ACC football coaches in these areas to go out and recruit the talent. You are seeing it with Florida State and Clemson. They are recruiting like the top of the SEC. There is nothing holding back the rest of the schools. The ACC is somewhat different from the SEC because it is also interested in Big Time Basketball to go along with football. The best talent for basketball comes from the northeast. The ACC is interested in being located in the northeast as well. This combination will enable the ACC to be at the top in both sports, and why its days are not numbered. All the complaints about the ACC having a lot of infighting due to conflicts between football and basketball are overblown. All of the schools play both. It is not like the Big East where there are a lot of members not playing football at all.
Some quick counterpoints:
Overlap is a huge concern, esp for ACC schools. The SEC's overall football infrastructure is simply way ahead of the ACC. As for the ACC schools with similar facilities to the SEC: Clemson and FSU, my point only goes further, since these are the ACC's best hopes for a NC in a given year. Miami has upped the ante as well, new football facility coming soon. The ACC is a basketball conference, albeit is depends on a lot of talent from the Midwest and Northeast for the hardwood- hs basketball in the BIG footprint will never decline - it's simply a year round indoor sport up here. Same goes for parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
I'd take hs football in Louisiana & Alabama over Virginia and the Carolinas, combined, any day of the week, 365, esp Louisiana. The Bayou State plays incredibly hs football, the best according to Peyton Manning - I agree.
Overlap issues just don't exist with the SEC, but your own conference and other FBS schools as well.
Alabama, Miss, Ark and S. Car don't have NFL football, and likely never will. Huge advantage for the SEC, albeit more slight for the Gamecocks - but they are the state flagship & they've simply outperformed Clemson during the Spurrier tenure. Throw in the fact that the other SEC schools with NFL competition are generally isolated in communities to themselves, outside the NFL zone.
Don't try to sell me on Clemson - they got blasted to the moon last week & have so often choked in big games. Their loss reminded that they're still the program who got humiliated by WVa a couple years back, BCS game. Probably the worst performance I've ever seen by a team in a BCS game.
Read the ESPN article carefully - hs football in SE has been the best for a long time -shift started in the 70s, though I'd argue earlier. Nothing shocking. Throw in post-segregation & you have yet another reason why the SEC's rise and the dominance of the Fla schools throughout the 80s and 90s is hardly revealing. Thus, I often laugh, and laugh hard when people spell Rust Belt Apocalypse = declining hs & college football. We care about football in this region, non-Rust Belt Midwest as well, but we sink a lot of support into NFL teams - it's been that way for a long, long time. Where I'm from, Minneapolis-St. Paul, we just don't care that much about hs football, hockey rules & our basketball continues to rise and produce top shelf recruits. No other state has produced the NHL talent Minnesota has, not even Mass, and they are a larger state, population wise. In other words, culture matters as well & some states are increasingly shifting away from a sport, football, that has the most long-term health concerns of any major American sport. Not that hockey is much safer, but the NHL has not reached the NFL's level of concerns.
Until the ACC starts lowering some of its academic standards and pimping bigger football stadiums - good luck! On the other hand, keep those academic standards up - I don't value football like much of the doucheeee boneheads that dress up and go to football games throughout the SEC and ACC. People should try to be smarter & stop idolizing cf players, they are just kids.
