[Koachshr]

I can tell you from experience That Cumberlands does recruit in state kids. I signed well over 50 of them in my four years down there. The major problem is definately not the coaching or recruiting but the financial aid office. They take forever to get financial aid packages together. Very few NAIA schools can know for certian what a financial aid package will look like before the NCAA signing day because NAIA and D3 schools have to look at financial aid packages. Since signing day is the first or second wednesday in February and most parents do not fill out FAFSA until they file their taxes then smaller schools can only estimate for guys that want to sign on national signing day. The staff at Cumberlands is very honest with evaluation of kids and do not want to give an estimate and then have the actual financial aid package come back and be off by a few thousand dollars. When this happens kids and parents feel lied to. Another reason is that Cumberlands gets so many kids out of Georgia, Tennessee and Florida because of their location and past coaches recruiting ties in those areas. As an Estill County graduate I hate to say this but Kentucky high school football is not up to the talent (overall) that comes out of those states. Cumberlands is a small school in a small town and about an hour from any real city. A lot of kids chose not to go there because of the location. The last time that a team won four consecutive conference championships was Georgetown's dynasty of the late 90's and 2000's. A lot of the talent on those teams were division 1AA transfers and were from KY and OHIO mostly. A lot of starters were from OHIO. It can be done with KY kids but you need to get every KY that is left after EKU, Murray, UK, UL, and Morehead are done picking. Coach Bland is a great HC and you can not argue with the facts or the record he has at UC.
Russ Shearer