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bully99
10-20-2013, 08:06 PM
When John Cohen or another coach brings a recruit to campus where it's too far to drive and they have to fly in, where do they fly into. In the old day's they use to fly the recruit into Jackson, Memphis, or Birmingham and have to drive to Starkville. Is that how it's done today or do they fly into the Golden Triangle Airport.
ShotgunDawg
10-20-2013, 08:12 PM
Golden Triangle
Op4isabitch
10-20-2013, 08:15 PM
It varies according to connection time and availability. On a side note, until the 2005 season we could actually fly our university airplane to the recruits city and pick them up and fly them to Starkville. All of the schools were doing this, then the NCAA put a stop to it. I still think it was wrong as now the system favors schools who have bigger airports with several airlines serving the region. Schools like ours are at a disadvantage because we have limited flights to our close airports and this makes it much harder to schedule official visits for recruits compared to say LSU or Tennessee etc. While not a large problem it's still another disadvantage we face.
Bothrops
10-20-2013, 08:53 PM
Not that much of a disadvantage. While GTR isn't a metropolitan airport like BTR or TYS-Knoxville, GTR has scheduled commercial airline service. Delta Connection serves Atlanta 3X daily. GTR is the 3rd busiest airport in the state, in terms of passengers carried. This benefits us since the Oxford and Tuscaloosa airports have no commercial airline service.
ShotgunDawg
10-20-2013, 08:56 PM
College Station, Columbia, MO, Gainesville, Athens, and Auburn don't have local service as well.
Op4isabitch
10-20-2013, 09:20 PM
While I see your point, most of the schools we compete for recruits with have larger airports relatively close. Like I said not a huge problem but it was much better prior to the NCAA leveling the playing field **
Bothrops
10-20-2013, 09:23 PM
Columbia, Gainesville, College Station and Athens all have scheduled service. Auburn does not, they use the Columbus Georgia airport for commercial flights, or Montgomery. GTR is a great benefit to MSU.
Bothrops
10-20-2013, 09:28 PM
While I see your point, most of the schools we compete for recruits with have larger airports relatively close. Like I said not a huge problem but it was much better prior to the NCAA leveling the playing field **

True, but most other schools are in much bigger towns. We are lucky that we have a local airport with nonstop service to the largest airline hub in the world.