THESE SEC schools have brainwashed and convinced kids that the only way to play bigtime football is to play in the SEC. That is their selling point when they go head to head with schools not in SEC.
That CB from Tampa a few years ago chose South Carolina over Miami because he wanted to play in the SEC. Until teams other than Clemson rise up to play at a top 10-15 level, then we will continue to battle this. You can tell from Tolan's comment that is what LSU is pushing. "You are too good to waste your talents in the crappy ACC young buck. It's very shortsighted but it is what it is. The ACC schools traditionally still stock the NFL, and are across the board much better academically than SEC SCHOOLS.
Even though you have suck teams like South Carolina, Mizzou, Tennessee, Vandy, Ole Miss, MIss St., Arkansas, Kentucky all throughout the conference these kids don't see it. They see Alabama winning all these NC's, and ESPN hyping up teams like UGA, uf, LSU, etc..
Miami has a HUGE need at LB, you get to live in Miami not Baton Rouge, you have this big NIL deal, LB's put up big numbers in Manny's scheme, these kids just don't get it.