Akron, BG, Kent need to recruit NE Ohio more

The number of Northeast Ohio football players on the rosters of the MAC schools closest to the region are surprisingly low. Those universities should start recruiting the area more, Mark Podolski writes.

Steve Trivisonno wonders where they’ve been.

They haven’t called in a while. Haven’t visited Mentor much. It’s hasn’t been that way only at Mentor High School, where Trivisonno has built the Cardinals into a Division I state power.

Northeast Ohio is an area with an abundance of football talent that’s translated to the college level. History says so. Robert Smith, Matt Wilhelm, Desmond Howard, Tony Fisher, Mitchell Trubisky, Joe Jurevicius, Troy Smith … the list goes on and on.

For all those marquee names, there are others — many others who slip through the cracks and don’t get a Division I look.

That’s been a benefit for the likes of Division II Notre Dame College and Division III John Carroll, programs that have stockpiled talent from Northeast Ohio.

NDC — 13-1 this season and a national semifinalist — has almost 30 players from Northeast Ohio on its roster. Coach Mike Jacobs said Northeast Ohio is always a target area in recruiting.

At JCU, Coach Rick Finotti’s roster has more than 40 players from Northeast Ohio.

“We want to own the area,” Finotti has said numerous times about the program’s recruiting efforts.

That was the mindset of former JCU coach Tom Arth, and that helped the Blue Streaks go 40-8 in his four seasons there. Since 2013, JCU is 55-14.

Of course, there isn’t a college football program winning exclusively with Northeast Ohio players. But stockpiling a roster with players from the likes of Mentor, St. Igantius, St. Edward and other winning programs isn’t a bad idea.

It creates excitement within the program, brings fans to games and helps the bottom line for coaches, and that’s W’s.

Arth knows that formula works, and the new University of Akron coach said Northeast Ohio will be an area of focus in recruiting.

Arth is a Westlake native and graduated from St. Ignatius and JCU.

At Kent State and Bowling Green, there isn’t much representation among Northeast Ohio schools on either school’s football roster.

Trivisonno said that trend, especially from Mid-American Conference schools in the region, has been “absolutely frustrating.”

That trend appears to be changing, he said. The Mentor coach believes many college coaches value a prospect’s performance at an offseason camp more than during games.

“Of course you need the measurables, but it should be more about how you play than how you test,” said Trivisonno.

How that translates in recruiting for lower-tier FBS programs such as those in the Mid-American Conference is impossible to answer. Recruiting is an inexact science, but for the likes of Kent State and Akron zeroing in on the Akron/Canton and Northeast Ohio areas makes sense.

At Kent State, secondyear coach Sean Lewis has no ties to Northeast Ohio. Lewis is a native of Illinois, but two of his assistants — defensive coordinator/assistant head coach Tom Kaufman and defensive line coach Brian Cochran — are Lake Catholic and JCU grads.

Cochran is especially valuable for Lewis. He was a longtime recruiting coordinator at JCU and has a long list of contacts in the Greater Cleveland area.

At Bowling Green, Trivisonno (who’s a graduate of BG) expects Scott Loeffler to the infiltrate the area too. The former University of Michigan quarterback takes over the Falcons’ program knowing full well the plethora of talent available in Northeast Ohio. Leffler prepped at Barberton High School.

If Arth, Lewis and Loeffler can change these numbers — 8, 11, 8 — it won’t guarantee success, but it won’t hurt either. Those are the respective players from Northeast Ohio players on the rosters of Akron, Kent State and Bowling Green.

All want to load up their rosters with the help of Northeast Ohio, and why not? This is a hotbed area for football recruiting.

Trivisonno is looking forward to it. Mentor has one player, BG defensive lineman Nico Lautanen, among the three rosters.

“We haven’t heard from those guys for a while,” said Trivisonno.

Contact Podolski at mpodolski@news-herald. com; On Twitter: @mpodo.

JOHN KAMPF — THE NEWS-HERALD Tom Arth talks at his introductory news conference Dec. 17 announcing him as Akron’s new head football coach.