I've read so many theories on this but wanted to post one from a man who grew up in AZ, was a star at Saguaro, went D-1 out of state, and played in the NFL for 12 years. He now is on Westwood One's number 1 radio team and gets the game of the week in college football.
Here goes: 20% of the kids in ANY state just want to leave the state no matter what to get away from home and to see the "world"....he was one of these. If the home atmosphere was fantastic the other 80% would kill to play for their hometown team. ASU, UofA, USC, UCLA, Cal, and Stanford are in major metro markets (consider U4 to be in the PHX market) but as we all have seen with our own eyes the support for these teams from the STUDENTS, ALUMNI, is very poor. Given the 300,000 plus alumni who live in this city and the student population (second biggest in the country) the home atmosphere for ASU is horrible to say the least (people on this site are the exception....it's not about us).
So a 17 year old kid takes a visit to A & M, Georgia, Nebraska, OU, Ohio State, Bama, etc. and walks into the stadium 30 minutes before kickoff and there's 100,000 screaming crazy people in the stands what do they think. Plus the team they are visiting always competes for conference titles and some national titles and ASU hasn't been to the Rose Bowl since 96-97. Where would you go?
The reason kids stay in Louisiana to play at LSU is the atmosphere, same with the kids in the south and midwest. They stay home to play because everyone in their state is rabid about their home team. Kids in AZ and CA leave to be a part of that atmosphere...how can you blame them.
ASU is unique, no other Power 5 school has the combination of Alumni living in the city the school plays and the sheer number of students on campus BUT most of them don't really care about Sun Devil football (hence the stadium shrinking and still can't be sold out).....that's why AZ and CA kids go to play football in front of fans that LOVE their team (again not the people on this site as we are rabid about our Sun Devils). The 4 CA schools are so bad the kids are coming here, really due to this staff (and Oregon / Washington have been and will continue to take more than their share due to the atmosphere they have created).
So that's his theory that I agree with.
Here goes: 20% of the kids in ANY state just want to leave the state no matter what to get away from home and to see the "world"....he was one of these. If the home atmosphere was fantastic the other 80% would kill to play for their hometown team. ASU, UofA, USC, UCLA, Cal, and Stanford are in major metro markets (consider U4 to be in the PHX market) but as we all have seen with our own eyes the support for these teams from the STUDENTS, ALUMNI, is very poor. Given the 300,000 plus alumni who live in this city and the student population (second biggest in the country) the home atmosphere for ASU is horrible to say the least (people on this site are the exception....it's not about us).
So a 17 year old kid takes a visit to A & M, Georgia, Nebraska, OU, Ohio State, Bama, etc. and walks into the stadium 30 minutes before kickoff and there's 100,000 screaming crazy people in the stands what do they think. Plus the team they are visiting always competes for conference titles and some national titles and ASU hasn't been to the Rose Bowl since 96-97. Where would you go?
The reason kids stay in Louisiana to play at LSU is the atmosphere, same with the kids in the south and midwest. They stay home to play because everyone in their state is rabid about their home team. Kids in AZ and CA leave to be a part of that atmosphere...how can you blame them.
ASU is unique, no other Power 5 school has the combination of Alumni living in the city the school plays and the sheer number of students on campus BUT most of them don't really care about Sun Devil football (hence the stadium shrinking and still can't be sold out).....that's why AZ and CA kids go to play football in front of fans that LOVE their team (again not the people on this site as we are rabid about our Sun Devils). The 4 CA schools are so bad the kids are coming here, really due to this staff (and Oregon / Washington have been and will continue to take more than their share due to the atmosphere they have created).
So that's his theory that I agree with.
