Welcome to Stars Madden, a recruiting podcast from the athletic. I'm Mitch Light, joined by Ari Wasserman.

Ari, it's Wednesday afternoon. You're looking good.

How's your weekend, buddy? Yeah, I mean, this is Wednesday. I'm, I'm just now recovering from a 36-hour hangover. So I'm just, I'm washed up, man. I know. Like, if this happens when you're 35, what are you going to do? Like, every year, it's going to get worse. I think the point is that most people, when they're 35, don't do it.

But... when you're 35, what are you going to do? Like every year, it's going to get worse. I mean, I think the point is that most people, when they're 35, don't do it. But back of my 20s, I used to own Vegas. And now it's just like, you know, one night. And it takes me 48 hours and start to feel like myself. But I do feel like I've got my voice back, which is good. and I recorded Andy's show the other day in pretty rough shape

but I'm starting to feel good. My voice is back. My nose is not clogged. And I'm ready to talk about some recruiting with you, man. I, you know, I missed you this week. I missed you too. The text I got from you on Sunday before you recorded was like, I have to record Andy's show. I think I'm going

to die. So I'm glad you didn't die, Ari, very, very much. All right. So today, we're going to

bounce around the nation. We're going to get some updates on how certain states are being recruited.

I always find that very interesting. Like, is the home state school doing well? Are they not?

What's going on there?

So just I picked it about four or five states randomly. It's the first big week into the season. Last weekend had some big time visitors on campuses. Some committed, some not committed. We'll take a look at one of our stories that ran last week. We referenced it last week, but we didn't talk about it where we ranked the top players at each ranking position, one through 25 in the modern era.

We're going to look at notable commitments, mailbag, and trivia.

So let's get right into it, Ari, because there were several questions in your mailbag about, I think it was about basically

like my team won, we had a great atmosphere, are we going to get 50 commitments out of it?

Basically like a lot of fans, rightfully so, they get fired up when their team wins and there's

a great crowd.

And there are questions like Florida, Ohio State.

How does that impact recruiting?

And obviously I'll let you answer.

You answered in your mailbag.

But I think it's important to note it matters, but it's not the decisive.

People typically don't commit just because there's a great atmosphere.

Yeah.

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