http://blog.modeanalytics.com/where-football-players-call-home/ Interesting article. Also, in case anyone ever wondered why JOCO is usually 'throw his hands up' in frustration over a lack of recruiting presence in his backyard for the Irish, do note that giant red county to the East of Los Angeles is San Bernardino County where JOCO resides. *edit* I took out the image as it is massive. They have an interactive map that you can play with by conference, position, per capita etc. Looks like a moved from one football rich area to another. I already knew that though, but it's interesting to look at the numbers.
Well San Bernadino and Riverside Counties have a little over 300 players with a college age male population of 240K. Harris County Texas and Ft. Bend County Texas (Houston Area) have almost 600 players with a college age male population of about 240K. But we do get a lot of recruiters looking at the players in the Houston Area.
Wow.... Arizona and Cali have some GIGANTIC counties just by land area. How do they manage that much territory?
San Bernardino County is a weird area. The vast majority of the population lives in one little corner. The rest of it is spread out to Arizona, Nevada and the end of the high desert. San Bernardino and Riverside Counties are growing hand over fist. They produce athletes across the board in numerous sports. I'm still surprised by how good Riverside County football has become recently. Those areas produce a ton of baseball talent and always have. What strikes me about the Texas map is how the football talent seems to hail from just a few specific areas. They have guys sprinkled in here and there, but the high volume areas crank out as much talent as anyone in the country.