Yawn.
“We don’t run into much of any negative recruiting around here as SEC coaches."
When he says BS like this, it's hard to take anything else he says seriously.
I think it's a non-story. I'm sure "negative" recruiting happens all the time, it would only make sense, there's stuff that can be said against Lincoln as well. As far as the criticisms about USC (they were what, crime and graduation?) I'm not really offended or annoyed by it because some of it is true. Columbia is a big city for SC and there is a crime problem
in certain areas just like any town but I never had any issues, not once, and I drank in 5 points at least twice week though I have heard its gotten rougher, part of that is because Five Points is just a few blocks down from a fairly large area of housing projects. Campus and the immediate areas around it, were all extremely safe and well policed in my time there. I never feared for my safety.
Is it more dangerous than Lincoln, Madison or Clemson? Yes. Is it Compton, Baltimore, Chicago or Atlanta? Not even close.
As far as graduation? Meh, fair. I don't know what's going on with that and I don't really care.
I do have one issue with the posts here though and it's about the size of Columbia. You guys don't seem to understand metropolitan areas. City limits don't accurately capture a city's size, for example, just on city size, San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the US, as far as metros go it's 25th.
So here:
City Size
Columbus OH - 809k
Minneapolis MN - 382k
Lexington KY - 305k
Lincoln NE - 265k
Madison WI - 240k
Baton Rouge LA - 229k
Knoxville TN - 182k
Columbia SC - 131k
Gainsville FL - 126k
Athens GA - 115k
Ann Arbor MI - 113k
Columbia MO - 108k
College Station TX - 99k
Tuscaloosa AL - 93k
Champaign IL - 82k
Bloomington IN - 80k
Fayetteville AR - 75k
Evanston IL - 75k
Iowa City IA - 67k
Auburn AL - 56k
East Lansing MI - 48k
State College PA - 42k
West Lafayette IN - 29k
Starkville MS - 23k
Oxford MS - 18k
Metro Size
Evanston IL - 9,522k (Chicago/Cook County)
Minneapolis MN - 3,422k
Columbus OH - 1,944k
Knoxville TN - 848k
Baton Rouge LA - 815k
Columbia SC - 784k
Madison WI - 620k
Lexington KY - 485k
East Lansing MI - 464k
Fayetteville AR - 463k
Ann Arbor MI - 344k
Lincoln NE - 310k
Gainsville FL - 268k
Tuscaloosa AL - 233k
Champaign IL - 231k
College Station TX - 231k
Athens GA - 192k
West Lafayette IN - 182k
Columbia MO - 175k
Bloomington IN - 175k
State College PA - 153k
Iowa City IA - 152k
Auburn AL - 147k
Oxford MS - 18k
Starkville MS - 23k