Recruit ratings seem biased toward players from south, west, and Texas.
Players not from these areas comprise 15 out of Rivals Top 100 and 14 out of ESPN's 150. Not only that, but those that do appear generally do so toward the bottom of both lists.
Only 1 out of 17 of Rivals 5-star players are from outside the region mentioned above, while none of ESPN's 14, 5-star players are from cold-weather states.
Do they honestly believe there are almost zero blue-chippers where the thermometer falls below freezing on a regular basis during the winter?
Either the Big Ten has by far the best coaching in the country or the recruiting analysts are biased toward warmer weather climates when it comes to assessing football talent.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:13 PM ^
This is part of the reason why people shouldn't invest so much into stars. Recruiting sites (especially ESPN) seems to be really biased towards those regions. Thus, they grade them higher.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:22 PM ^
Also don't forget about the guys who play in the Under Armor All-American game which is televised on ESPN.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:23 PM ^
Good point.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:31 PM ^
aren't you
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:23 PM ^
Absolutely agree. Don't pay too much attention with these stars. Stars don't mean everything. It's how the kids are used in the system and how they play against higher competition on the field. FYI (Rivals) Mike Hart 3 star, Jake Long 4 star, Those guys left school as 5 star players.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:28 PM ^
Haha. I agree 100%. That's what I have been saying but there's people who believe stars are everything. They're not. It's how the kid's are coached. How they're used and implemented into the offense or defense. Can't judge heart, either. A lot of these recruits Rich and Coach Hoke brought in, seem like they have a ton of heart. Just listen and read what Kellen Jones has to say. That guy gets me pumped up. I'm excited about his class! Let's goooooooo! Come on Spring Ball!
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:53 PM ^
You have been pounding away all day that stars mean nothing, it's almost getting to the point its irratating. And of course there is going to be a bias to the south and warmer climates where players can actually play the sport they like the best year round.
February 2nd, 2011 at 10:10 PM ^
When did I say they mean nothing? I said they aren't everything.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:13 PM ^
It's been this way for years. I wonder if it is because of the presence of the SEC
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:14 PM ^
Very good point. Take Mark Ingram - 4-star from Michigan goes to Alabama and wins the Heisman. There is an obvious bias in the recruiting ratings.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:24 PM ^
global warming must be a hoax.
February 2nd, 2011 at 10:28 PM ^
sure...okay...
In your zeal to demonstrate how clever you are you miss the point. No one is claiming there aren't more good players in those regions...the OP was pointing out the resulting bias. Since there are so many players in the south the north gets under-scouted...hence my point regarding Ingram. If he were from and SEC state he almost certainly would have been a 5-star.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:15 PM ^
And welcome to another episode of Things That Are Obvious! Let's meet our contestants...
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:17 PM ^
Go into that. First, the deep south and Texas have been producing a disproportionate number of top prospects at certain key positions for years. That's reflected not only in the SEC's success, but also in how top programs outside the two regions now aggressively recruit there. Second, Auburn's win, however, slim, cemented a regional bias among "experts." Not that this is completely unfounded, mind you, but it can also feed into and distort the way people evaluate talent. Third, I think this year in particular has been relatively weak in some of the other recruiting hotbeds (SoCal, Ohio, mid-Atlantic), compared to other years.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:20 PM ^
is that High School football is just a much bigger thing there. They may not actually have more athletic talent, but they ARE better at showcasing it. Many recruits from the north get knocked because of "poor competition". That's never a problem in the south.
February 2nd, 2011 at 10:43 PM ^
California produces far and away the most NFL talent, and I can promise you that there is no way that HS football is a bigger deal there than it is here in Michigan, much less the other midwestern states. In fact, I would argue the opposite.
February 3rd, 2011 at 12:57 AM ^
If I'm not mistaken, D-linemen are most likely from the deep South.
Check out the map of NFL d-linemen
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:23 PM ^
Look around at NFL rosters... the majority of the talent is coming from California, Texas and the South. Sure the Midwest and Penn and NJ have their fair share of players in the league, but overwhelming percentage hails from the South and west.
This article is a little bit old but it definately shows as much.
http://rivals100.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=259347
Now, the reason why this is so is an entirely different debate. For certain, the weather plays a huge factor as does a whole other milieu of reasons.
EDIT: Please dont take this as me saying the recruiting sites valuations are good or not biased. I am definately not saying that; I am simply saying that there has been a shift towards production from these states away from the Midwest and Plains states.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:32 PM ^
Good article.
I do think Rivals pays more attention to the south (no scouts covering the Ohio/Michigan era), but it's likely minor.
Factors like culture and year round football have a lot more to do with it.
While we up north are playing basketball and hockey, the south is playing more football.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:36 PM ^
I'm not disputing the validity of your point...it's true. They do.
But I think this year there's also some serious distortion in the talent evaluation based on the perception that this is true (i.e. a willingness to give a fifth star in Florida but an unwillingness to do the same in PA for similar talent), and some natural distortion due to a relatively weak year in several other recruiting hotbeds. In other words, if the deep South and Texas normally produce 2x talent, this year, this relative weakness elsewhere makes it 3x, and perception bias makes it 4x. Or something like that.
While there will be more top recruits from these regions than elsewhere for years to come, I don't expect the recruits to be quite so regionally biased next year, or a few down the line once non-SECs schools win national championships again.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:22 PM ^
Or maybe those regions simply produce better players.
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:06 PM ^
I would have been one of those in the "skeptical" group; until I moved to the South. The level of raw talent at virtually every level of competition (i.e. school size) down here is off the charts. It's ridiculous.
February 3rd, 2011 at 12:25 AM ^
total population of male students that went to public school :
Michigan- 898,600
California - 3,191,196
| Florida- 1,331,495 |
Texas -2,226,129
There is just more people and more of a chance of somebody to be really good at football from Florida, California, and Texas compared to Michigan and a lot of the midwest states.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:37 PM ^
They are biased to those places because the kids are faster. I mean really fast. They also play against other fast kids. Thats where a large proportion of the prospects come from. The level of competition and speed are just different. There are always outliers, but on average thats how it is.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:41 PM ^
I think that maybe kids from the south might be better athletes because they have all year to practice and condition. Up here, especially during this time of the year, it would be hard for kids at schools with worse facilities to condition. This could explain the speed.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:42 PM ^
I wonder if there is a link between the recruiting bias suggested by the OP and conference rankings. The media tends to pit the Big Ten behind the SEC and Pac12 in terms of performance/competition/etc. I wonder if the recruiting gurus subconciously apply use this information in their assessments of recruits from those areas. Perhaps they are more willing to give recruits from the SEC/Pac12 regions the benefit of the doubt.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:45 PM ^
at risk of offending the overly politically correct crowd, I think the answer is pretty simple:
http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhblack.html
If someone can provide a reasonable dispute to this, I'm all ears.
February 2nd, 2011 at 10:35 PM ^
Oh Ok... So black people are better at football than white people? That's the conversation you're starting?
Wow.
February 2nd, 2011 at 10:59 PM ^
but that's not the converation I was trying to start. However, a good read on the subject:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947918-1,00.html
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:33 PM ^
That's what I thought you were getting at. I'd seen this article before. Thank you for posting it. Regardless of whether you agree with what's said in the article or not, there is a lot to this subject that a lot of people can't (or won't) even acknowledge, let alone discuss.
February 3rd, 2011 at 1:10 AM ^
"In the National Football League, 42% of the players are black."
That doesn't sound like a "dominance" to me.
Why aren't the best atheletes from NYC, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, or other major northern cities with large or primarily black populations?
I say it's more due to the emphasis of football as the #1 sport down south, than purely black population. The north of the country has plenty of atheletes that go into hockey, soccer, or any number of winter sports that don't exist in the south.
February 3rd, 2011 at 2:52 PM ^
"That doesn't sound like a "dominance" to me."
You might want to check the date of the article and then recheck that statistic...
"Why aren't the best atheletes from NYC, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, or other major northern cities with large or primarily black populations?"
I'm going to guess that has a lot more to do with those locations being more urbanized, as opposed to the South, which, with rare exception, is largely rural. Football is a lot like baseball in that sense (i.e. players tend to predominantly come from more rural areas). Large cities simply tend to not produce large numbers of football players (or baseball players) of any ethnicity. People in urban areas tend to gravitate toward sports that are conducive to being played easily and cheaply in urban areas; similar to how hockey is more prevalent in the north for obvious reasons.
February 3rd, 2011 at 9:43 PM ^
The original posit was:
"http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhblack.html
If someone can provide a reasonable dispute to this, I'm all ears."
I think we've clearly provided a reasonable dispute that "high population of black people does not (necessarily) = best football players"
February 4th, 2011 at 2:35 AM ^
I just want to provide some actual data, and then you (and everyone else) can decide if I made your point for you or not.
The states with the highest population density on the link provided by the "somewittyname" contain over 42% (14,931,992 out of 34,996,643) of the entire black population of the United States (and are all in the southeastern United States). In other words, 10 states have 42% of the entire black population. Now, add in Texas and California, since those were the other states included by "steve sharik". When you include Texas and California, the total rises to 56% (19,598,647 out of 34,996,643) of the entire black population of the United States. In other words, 12 states have 56% of the entire black population. Also, for what it's worth, those twelve states also comprise seven of the top ten states with the highest black population, and ten of the top fifteen. Now, let's look at the cities with the largest black population (we'll use metro areas, instead of actual cities, since some cities have antiquated, and very small, actual "city" boundaries). The metro areas with the largest black populations are New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Philadelphia, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore and Dallas-Fort Worth. Five of those cities (Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, Baltimore and Dallas-Forth Worth) are in the group of twelve states already mentioned, so their population is already included in the aforementioned population total. That leaves us with New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia and Detroit as "northern cities with large or primarily black populations". Those six metro areas have a total black population of 7,759,342 (or 22.1% of the nation's entire black population). Now, let's look at the top 25 metro areas. Of the top 25 metro areas, 14 are in the 12 states previously discussed, which leaves 11 metro areas outside of those 12 states. Those 11 metro areas have a black population of 9,936,422 (i.e. 50% less people than the 12 states previously mentioned). Feel free to make conclusions as you'd like.
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:43 PM ^
Oh Ok... So black people are better at football than white people? That's the conversation you're starting?
Would you dispute that? You think black people and white people are equally good at football? The logical extension of that is that there's some kind of massive systemic discrimination against white football players, which is silly. Racial equal opportunity doesn't mean we have to pretend perfect racial equality exists.
Just because someone made a comment about race, that doesn't make it a racist comment or make the discussion null and void. The percentage of black people playing football is wildly disproportionate to the percentage of black people in the country; I'm not afraid to suggest that it probably means they're better at football.
February 3rd, 2011 at 12:26 PM ^
So black people are better at football than white people?
Yes, we are
edit: though MaizeAndBlueWahoo above me said it far more eloquently.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:49 PM ^
some research on NFL players. See what regions they are from and where they went to school, I bet it evens out a bit.
Anyone know Malcolm Gladewell personally? This would make a great additional chapter to 'Outliers'. The fact that there is bias towards the south creates the perpetual myth etc.
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:06 PM ^
I am pretty sure that I've seen a quantitative study on this somewhere. . . and it actually showed that the bias is in the favor of the midwest and northeast by the recruiting sites, when you compare percentage of guys who actually "succeed" (and I know- just what constitutes "success" or "justifying the star rating" is an argument all by itself) on a per-capita and regional basis. As in, it's actually worse than the hs rankings flesh out; higher percentage of "busts" and overrated guys come from the midwest, etc. The theory was that if they didn't rate guys from the midwest and east/mid-atlantic, etc., more, then they'd get even less subscribers- the pay sites- because many of the most rabid fan bases are B10/ND, etc. I do know that, per capita, Mississippi and Louisiana produce the most NFL players, and talent is generally concentrated (on a per-capita) basis in the deep south, (and even disproportionately moreso than the recruiting rankings show, I believe). There was an SI study about it a couple years ago, or perhaps it was ESPN. I can't recall, and am too lazy to look all of it up right now after shoveling my car out for two f'ing hours.
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:08 PM ^
There was a really recent piece done on defensive linemen in the NFL (it was actually posted and discussed here - I'm thinking within the last two or three weeks). The percentage of players from the southeast was substantially disproportionate compared to every other region in the country.
February 2nd, 2011 at 9:52 PM ^
its really not hard for me to believe that the best 15-20 players in the country are from the south, west, or texas. i mean thats like half the country anyway
for the most part, the only solid football talent generating state anywhere in the north is ohio and some pennsylvania and maryland. while florida and texas each have a top 100
February 2nd, 2011 at 10:36 PM ^
regions, what would we expect the numbers to be? it was a down year in the midwest right?
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:37 PM ^
Devil's advocate: it is possible that certain factors actually do make Southerners better football players. Warmer weather year-round means they can focus on football outdoors year-round and do all kinds of drills that you just can't do in northern climates without indoor practice facilities - which high schools don't typically have. So northern football players play other sports in the winter. Northern schools have a more diverse offering of sports; some of the better athletes might be siphoned off into hockey or lacrosse, which don't have the stature (or even exist) in the South.
February 3rd, 2011 at 12:31 AM ^
I think the answer partially lies in the fact that the South (including Texas, Texas isn't that friggin awesome to deserve its own region, trust me I live there) and West have a larger portion of the population. Demographics have shown a trend of people moving generally south from the Midwest, and no, I don't care to back up that statement with any research.
February 3rd, 2011 at 1:00 AM ^
Next year there project to be more higher-ranked recruits from Ohio, Michigan, etc.
February 3rd, 2011 at 6:31 AM ^
ESecPN will have you believe that southern football players (along with Cali) are the best and warm warm weather states have the most talent. two points: 1) incedently these are the areas where Disney (ESecPN's father) has all there $$$ invested, and 2) they must be absolutely correct - how many southern or dome teams are playing in the Super Bowl?
This topic has been rehashed a bunch of times on the Board but I dont get tired of it, its better if more people can see the wisdom that midwest and B10 bashing is all a product of the media who has vested interests to ensure that the B10 struggles. Not saying that there are not good players in warmer states, just saying that there is alot more to the equation when it comes to rankings and publicity of the region.
February 3rd, 2011 at 7:54 AM ^
yea...that's the ticket. you're not allowed to play for Pittsburgh unless you're from Pennsylvania...right?
That's terrible logic "there's no dome teams or southern teams in the championship game so southern states must not have the most talent."
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:53 AM ^
How does the absence of "southern" or "dome" teams from the Super Bowl have anything to do with high school recruiting?
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:03 PM ^
Talent scouts not freezing their balls off at HS football games = glowey, positive ratings.
February 4th, 2011 at 5:06 AM ^
I'm not arguing to or for your argument because I think a lot of people have hashed out most of those arguments, but I just wanted to throw this article out there for some light reading on regions producing NFL talent. Here's the link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/14/60minutes/main6097706.shtml
edit: there are a number of other articles and statistics on that area if you're interested, this was just one of the first ones when I searched on it.
February 4th, 2011 at 10:57 AM ^
That the ever increasing migration to the south is only further impacting the pool from which the best players come. This is especially true between Michigan and Texas. The Texas population has been booming over the last 10-15 years. I can't even tell you the number of people I meet on a regular basis that have moved from either Michigan or California. Michigan' economy has driven its population down, and increased Texas' - already huge - population. Football players come out of that population. Not to mention, high school football in Texas is a really BIG deal, so your typically getting kids that are well coached and football smart.
A local high school coach (friend of mine) always brings up "Yeah, Michigan gets our leftovers", whenever I bring up the fact that Michigan is getting Texas kids. He's right. UT gets most of the best kids from a pool of athletes that is unequalled. After, that either Texas Tech, A&M, TCU, or Oklahoma (its kind of like the anti rival thing - ie; Hoke) get them. Baylor will usually get a couple top level guys but the rest tend to be average....hence their record. The rest of the upper echelon of players get distributed among the SEC and a few make it elsewhere.
That' why Mack Brown having a losing record is far more ridiculous than Michigan....no excuse.