Jeebus man, this is the problem with recruiting when every year, another crop of newbies get into it, and everything seems like the world is coming to an end and like this sh*t has never happened before.
The "State of Miami" is a MYTH and always was. What Howard did, was not "lock down" So Fla. What he did was go out and get as MANY of the best So Fla kids as he could, to try to build momentum, and ties within he community which create pipelines and a sense of community ownership for the program from the talent that was already in South Florida. Prior to that, Miami recruited all over, and many if not most of the South Florida talent was going all over too. Howard decided to focus on So Fla FIRST. That doesnt mean we locked down EVERY kid in South Florida. We NEVER have, even in our BEST of times.
There are TONS of reasons why these kids may want to leave. Some kids just want to go away and live on their own. Some kids want a change of scenery. Some kids want to get away from their families and friends, and the "streets". Some kids want more of the traditional "college" experience ,with the big "rah rah" campus in some college town in the middle of no where. Some kids and their families are bought, coming from poor economic backgrounds, its a no brainer for many to take a big chunk of money to go play somewhere else. And some kids, just like to go against the grain. Why does everyone assume that every kid grows up rooting for the "home team"? When I lived in Miami, there was ALWAYS a portion of guys I grew up with that hated the Dolphins. You could have 8 guys love the Fins, and 3 or 4 hated them. They would root for the Jets, or the Pats, or Dallas or someone else. Living in the DC area for a long time now, same thing here. For every 2 Redskins fans, you will get 1 Dallas, or Philly, or Green Bay, or Pats fans.
When I grew up in Miami, and it was in the Cane glory days, despite most of us being die hard Cane fanatics, there were ALWAYS those guys that would want to rock the UF or FSU gear, and be different. It can also be exacerbated by family and friend connections, where there are more FSU and UF alums running around in So Fla than UM alumni. So its not surprising that a kid from So Fla may be more interesting in FSU because he had a cousin, or a friend, or a coach or family member that went there. In fact, there are MUCH better odds that the people they know, will have been to UF or FSU, rather than UM, of those who had any college experience, ESPECIALLY in the poorer inner city areas. (Im not factoring in places like FIU, UCF, or USF for obvious reasons).
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