How IMG Academy became the new-age recruiting powerhouse that the B1G is set on winning

By Connor O’Gara, Saturday Tradition

On a breezy Florida afternoon in May, two 30-something men wearing tucked-in polos make small talk while standing on a crowded sideline.

There’s no mistaking what they are. Like the men that surround them, they’re college football coaches. For the more-knowledgeable college football fan, there’s no mistaking who they are, either.

The taller one in the white-striped Penn State polo is Lions wide receivers coach Josh Gattis. The shorter, well-built guy in the cardinal red polo is Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard. The B1G assistants are more familiar with each other than the other 15-plus college coaches that stand on the IMG Academy sideline.

Exactly five months earlier on the first Saturday of December, Gattis and Leonhard stood on opposite sidelines at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Leonhard, then Wisconsin’s defensive backs coach, schemed against Gattis’ group of receivers in the B1G Championship.

That matchup proved to be the deciding factor. It was Gattis’ receivers who fueled a furious second-half comeback and ultimately, a 38-31 victory. Penn State’s long, athletic pass-catchers took advantage of Wisconsin’s stout, but smaller secondary. Gattis helped the Lions expose Wisconsin’s weakness, which was the difference in winning a conference title.

If Gattis and Leonhard talk about the B1G Championship in Bradenton, it isn’t a long conversation. They didn’t make the cross-country flight to southwest Florida to chat about the past.

They’re at IMG to recruit the core of their next B1G Championship team.

Unlike the one they had back in December, the battle at IMG isn’t just Penn State vs. Wisconsin. Every Power Five conference has at least one assistant in Bradenton, not to mention a handful of Group of Five schools and Notre Dame.

“It blows you away,” IMG coach Kevin Wright says.

In a few short years, IMG became a high school football juggernaut with more blue-chip recruits than anywhere in the country.

And winning the IMG battle in May can make all the difference in winning the real battle in December.

The numbers are staggering.

It’s one thing to have a handful of FBS signees come from one high school. It’s another thing to have 21 kids — one short of an entire starting lineup — earn an FBS scholarship. That was the case for IMG in 2017.

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Photo: Saturday Tradition