Predicting the Next Big Recruiting Hotbeds Around the Country

Hotbeds are areas, cities, towns, states and regions where there is a lot of talent for a college to recruit from. The "super hotbeds" are states like California, Texas and Florida, and they're considered super hotbeds for obvious reasons.

Other states like Alabama, Georgia, Ohio and Louisiana also are great hotbeds for college football recruiting talent. Each year, coaches flock to the hotbeds around and across the country looking to mine the next great player for their respective programs.

For this read, let's switch things up and look into our recruiting crystal ball. For this piece, we're going to project the next big recruiting hotbeds for college football recruiting. Some hotbeds will be familiar yet underrated areas while another hotbed or two may have a foreign feel.

Here are the next hotbeds where you'll soon see schools deploy their resources to.

Las Vegas

Sin City is an area that's expanding to being more than just a vacation city. The quality of competition gets better and better each year, and Las Vegas produces a little bit more talent than you realize.

From Steven Jackson back in the day, to DeMarco Murray to Xavier Grimble to Ronnie Stanley to Nathan Starks of this year, Las Vegas has churned out talent in the past and is one of the next big hotbeds of the future.

So, soon enough you'll see more and more prospects coming out of Vegas and more coaches will be flocking there to look at a few recruits while also doing a little "other" stuff. 

New York

New York is a basketball state, especially in The City. However, we've seen talent like Leon Williams, Ishaq Williams and Ebenezer Ogundeko come out of New York City as top-level football recruits.

Notre Dame already has a commit this year from Brooklyn-born DT Jay Hayes, while Thomas Holley is considered a 4-star prospect by many publications.

Alabama went to New York last year for JUCO OT Leon Brown and Florida got Dominique Easley from Staten Island in 2010.

NYC will likely always be a hoops hotbed, but football is growing, and the city is going to start churning out more football recruits moving forward. 

Arizona

This place is kind of underrated as far as hotbeds go when you think about it.

Players like Davonte' Neal, Everson Griffen, Kris O'Dowd, Connor Brewer, D.J. Foster, Priest Willis, Andrus Peat and Dion Jordan have come from Arizona.

Even this year, recruits like Mark Andrews, Kyle Allen and Cameron Denson all call 'Zona home. The caliber of football here has grown exponentially over the years and with many people moving to Phoenix to escape the California costs of living, things are bound to continuing growing around this state.

Look for Arizona to move up a few notches on the hotbeds list in the coming years. 

D.C. and the Surrounding Area

The D.C. area is starting to put out some good prospects more often.

Notables in recent years from D.C. include Eddie Goldman, Derwin Gray and Devin Butler while Jelani Jenkins, Kendall Fuller, Tavon Austin, Joe Haden, Cyrus Kouandjio and Stefon Diggs all hail from Maryland.

Jalen Tabor and D'Andre Payne are the top players in D.C. this year while OL prospect Damian Prince is a national recruit from Maryland. This region is definitely a growing hotbed to keep a keen eye for the future of football recruiting. 

International Recruiting

Soon enough, recruiting is going to stretch out internationally. Colleges are going to have to be sending coaches over to Europe, up to Canada and even all the way to Australia and in between looking for prospects.

Florida State DE Bjoern Werner is going to be a first-round pick, and he's from Germany. Alabama DT Jesse Williams is from Australia, and he's going to be a high-round pick next month as well.

Last year, we saw Nic Purcell become a wanted man from the JUCO trail, and he is from New Zealand.

The foreign frontier could be the next great super hotbed for recruiting in college football.

Edwin Weathersby is the College Football Recruiting Analyst for Bleacher Report. He has worked in scouting/player personnel departments for three professional football teams, including the New York Giants, Cleveland Browns and the Las Vegas Gladiators of the Arena League. He spent a year evaluating prep prospects and writing specific recruiting and scouting content articles for Student Sports Football (formerly ESPN Rise-HS). A syndicated scout and writer, he's also contributed to WeAreSC.com, GatorBait.net and Diamonds in the Rough Inc., a College Football and NFL Draft magazine.