Which State Produces the Best Players at Each Position – RB

Welcome back to another edition of Which State Produces the Best Player at Each Position! The last article we saw Florida win back-to-back positions! Man, with all of these position wins, Florida’s colleges should be dominating college football, right? Oh wait… Anyway, let’s jump into it!

To add numerical value to this argument, I pulled recruiting information using 247 Sports recruit ranking and Sports Reference from the last 5 years that have had draft eligible players (2015-2019). The top 50 players per position were added to the database based on the state in which they played High School football and a value was added to that state based off the number of stars they had (5 Stars = 5pts, 1 Star = 1 pt.). Then for the draft, I added ALL players drafted for that specific position and points were given based on which round they were drafted (1st Rd = 7 points ,7th Rd = 1pt). 

NOTE: 

– Athletes from Washington D.C. were put into the Virginia group.

– Athletes that may have transferred to a sports specialized school such as IMG, were included in the state of the specialized school. Too many transfers occur and it’s virtually impossible to determine why the transfer occurred. 

This data was interesting, as I’ve gathered data, I’m starting to see a trend of a concentration of players coming from the Gulf Coast. What makes this area different from others? Well, besides a plethora of hurricanes every year, this area is a tropical climate making it an area where people are able to be outside year-round. The more your able to be outside, the more likely you are to be active. This would make sense for the skill positions (QB, RB, WR, DB) to be dominated by tropical areas. So, if this trend continues, and if my assumptions are true (they usually always never are), then Florida may be going for a three-peat.

The top 5 states in terms of high school prospects (without population considered) are:

1. Florida (161)

2. Texas (135)

3. California (90)

4. North Carolina (65)

5. Georgia (56)

Ok, so they aren’t all Gulf Coast states…yet, but they all are coastal states. North Carolina sticks out like the kid that was held back three times in the class photo, but all of the other states are repeats from just about every other position…BORING. Here are the top 5 states in terms of NFL draftees (without population considered):

1. Florida (64)

2. California (41)

3. Texas (38)

4. Pennsylvania (30)

5. Alabama (26)

Who in THE world invited Pennsylvania and Alabama to the party? I mean, I know Alabama is good at football and all, but no one lives there. And Pennsylvania? I guess it pays off to be Amish and have to literally run to the grocery store. So, who’s gonna win? Does Florida make it 3 in a row? Does Alabama sneak into the picture like me at the pre-prom party, trying to show my mom that I actually had a date when in all reality…let’s uhh move on, shall we?

Survey says *insert certain game show ding*: Florida has tied Georgia for the lead in position wins! This race came down to the wire, with Florida eeking out the win over Louisiana, Alabama, and North Carolina for this victory. Urban Meyer really should’ve had his thumb on this state for recruiting rather than…well, maybe I don’t finish this sentence. As usual, I want to thank each and every one of you who actually read every word up to this point and didn’t just scan over the data and the charts and saw the winner…well actually thank y’all too, just know that Santa is watching and he knows…he knows.