Miami has also always been a National brand; The U symbol is still looked at positively by kids around the country.
It only became a joke to local South FL kids because they used to clown us & use as a placeholder while they were getting bagged up from the SEC & B1G schools.
But now with NIL in affect & a legitimate coaching staff, we can get nearly any premier National player we want because Miami aside from being a historic (in the eyes of recruits) destination for Football, is also a Big market program that can sell so many opportunities outside of Football that makes us enticing.
People genuinely thought NIL wouldn’t help us, what was overlooked was small college towns are overly booster reliant, but that doesn’t give a lot of leeway for ingenuity & innovation; Big City = Big Opportunities, Big Opportunities = More commerce; Small towns in Middle of Nowheresville can’t compete with the atmosphere of Miami & now that we can have legal financial bids with other teams we’re winning most of these battles because other schools were overly reliant on the mystique of being a Big Fish in a little pond...
The reason I been pushing for TX for such a long time is from having lived worked & coached there, I know for a fact those kids are actually more receptive to us than most would assume; I’m still in touch with several 7v7 coaches in both Dallas & Houston regions & they tell me all the time the kids down there love The U. We just over the years have always neglected the region, while Bama, UGA, Clemson & Oh ST were making the playoffs & winning titles off stealing those kids.
Now, we won’t be missing out... And we’ll start landing kids from all over in places we would never even imagine. Especially with kids flocking to IMG every year, they’ll now have way more exposure & much closer access to us while being OOS kids in Florida & it will make for a much easier to sell to their families considering they’re in Florida already.
It’s like we’re in the construction business & one of our own just got elected to be the head of the Union; we’re about to eat!