Wray Morrison: Southern migration

My good friend Jim Mullin from Vancouver took to Twitter with an interesting statistic on the heels of the CFL draft.

In 2014, 17 of the first 18 players chosen in the draft came from U Sports. In the 2019 CFL draft, 10 of the first 18 players were from the NCAA, while just eight came from Canadian U Sports schools.

This could be good news for the Canadian Football League. Increased CFL exposure on American campuses may help the league get more respect across the border. Canadian-born players already know a lot about the CFL, but added credibility on U.S. campuses could come through word of mouth.

The bad news is that many of the top high school football players in this country have American universities in pursuit like never before. Recruitment for talent has intensified. In the United States, there are actual football academies that start looking at players at 13 or 14 years of age, then those players spend their high school years in the United States.

U Sports owes it to supporters and to the athletes themselves to ensure that the top Canadian-born university age football players stay in the country.

Sadly, the numbers don’t appear to be trending that way.