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Darrell Hazell

Cost-of-attendance scholarships might give a lift to recruiting in Midwest

Kevin Trahan
Special for USA TODAY Sports

CHICAGO — As the population shifts away from America’s flyover country, and with it the majority of the country’s good football players, schools in the Midwest — even those with impressive traditions — have had difficulty wooing top high school recruits away from the coasts and the Sun Belt.

“I think it will help the kids out immensely,” Purdue coach Darrell Hazell says of cost-of-attendance scholarships. “Especially the (national) guys who know they’re going to be able to afford a plane ticket, transportation home. That’s a lot of additional money.”

But in a changing college athletics landscape, there is one change on the horizon that could lure to players to America’s heartland: paying for part of their travel costs.

Starting this year, athletic departments will be able to offer scholarships that cover the full cost of attending the university, not just tuition, room and board. Those numbers are determined by each university and take into account travel and and living expenses, which is particularly important for teams who recruit players who live far away, and for the players looking to attend a school a thousand miles from home.

"It's going to mean a lot for (future players),” Iowa cornerback Jordan Lomax said Friday at Big Ten Media Days. “Especially with the distance, if you've got kids who play at Iowa that live on the East Coast who can't get all the way home all the time because it's so expensive. It's going to mean a lot. It's probably going to help out the recruiting because now kids won't have to worry about the distance part, because now kids will know to get home, that they'll have money to get back."

Lomax is a native of Hyattsville, Md., in the heart of Mid-Atlantic pipeline that Iowa has targeted in the past few years. As an East Coast native, Lomax often hosts recruits from that region, and many of them worry about being able to afford the travel.

"That's one of their questions that they ask me, ‘How do you deal with it being far away from home?’ ” he said.

The cost-of-attendance scholarships could provide a desperately needed remedy for schools that need to travel long distances to find top talent, and that’s particularly true of teams in the Big Ten West. Only four of the top 100 recruits in the class of 2016, according to the 247 Sports composite ratings, come from Big Ten West states — Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

Suddenly, a Nebraska offer with more than $3,600 per year extra attached to it for travel and living purposes — according to the school's website — is a lot more enticing for an out-of-state player who could more easily, and more cost-effectively play close to home.

“I think it would help (recruiting) because some people are not as fortunate as other people,” Texas native and Nebraska quarterback Tommy Armstrong said. “Some people can afford it, some people can’t. Some people, they have opportunities to do stuff. They can go home whenever they want.”

Even looking beyond the cost-of-attendance scholarships, additional money that can be used for family members could alleviate concerns of players who are worried their families will never see them play — a concern Minnesota defensive end Theiren Cockran, a Florida native, said could be lifted if players had a way to bankroll trips.

“I think it will help the kids out immensely,” Purdue coach Darrell Hazell said. “Especially the (national) guys who know they’re going to be able to afford a plane ticket, transportation home. That’s a lot of additional money.”

Given population trends, the Big Ten West is always going to be at a geographic disadvantage when it comes to recruiting. But cost-of-attendance scholarships might make the distance between the football hotbeds of the Sun Belt and the cornfields of the Midwest feel quite a bit shorter.

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