Roster Maps for the Big Ten Teams
I was wondering the other day how regional, national, or international Big Ten teams were so I decided to plot their players hometowns on a map.
Google wouldn't let me do all 14 teams on one map so I did the East and West separately. The layers overlap quite a bit but you can turn them on/off individually or in combinations.
One issue with how importing to Google Maps worked was, for example, all 18 players from Omaha on Nebraska's roster were placed in exactly the same spot so it looked like just one person. Therefore, for each location on each team with more than one player, I just moved the icons apart a little bit to show multiple people.
This means that not all of them are exactly in the right spot (and I wasn't trying to put them where their high school is) but it gives a little better picture of how many players are from each area.
Not sure what I learned, but it was entertaining to make.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:01 PM ^
I think we learned you have a fair amount of free time.
But you channel it in non-destructive ways.
September 20th, 2022 at 2:07 PM ^
Nah...instead it goes to show the depth of how much our fans care about our team. Thanks to the OP for doing this... it is quite informative...shows how we got shut out of Cleveland and Cinci area and need to get back in.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:04 PM ^
Thanks for posting this! Interesting to see where the teams draw from.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:04 PM ^
Iowa's profile is the most Iowa thing ever.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:05 PM ^
I'm intrigued what school might be the most "local" of the major programs.
LSU maybe?
September 20th, 2022 at 2:06 PM ^
The two Mississippi schools have a rep of putting a fence around the state, but they likely draw from rest of SEC footprint (and Chicago if the money is right).
Hawaii has a disproportionate number of is-state kids, ‘natch.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:06 PM ^
This is pretty cool. Love the OSU logo!
September 20th, 2022 at 5:19 PM ^
Yes, only thing possibly better than the choice of a cooler would be a Zach Smith endorsed ball lifter!!!
September 20th, 2022 at 1:06 PM ^
Next week's assignment is to add the ability to sort by recruiting ranking. :)
September 20th, 2022 at 1:07 PM ^
I don't subscribe to any sites that would have that info easily available but it would be interesting!
September 20th, 2022 at 1:15 PM ^
I was just kidding! But, it would be interesting.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:49 PM ^
Not sure about your data mining skills, but a webscraper with links like the below might help. Or just doing it manually.
https://247sports.com/season/2021-football/compositeteamrankings/
September 20th, 2022 at 2:14 PM ^
They've already done the webscrape for all schools over at College Football Data. The place is a goldmine for all sorts of data.
Here's a link for Michigan's 2022 recruiting class with *s, position, hometown lat. and long. etc.
September 20th, 2022 at 2:15 PM ^
Very Nice! Thanks.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:07 PM ^
Very cool, OP. Great job and thanks for doing this.
I was surprised to see that we actually recruit Florida better than OSU and have pretty much the same number of recruits from Texas as them. I suspect that they have more *s for the Texas recruits, though.
Had a good chuckle at the symbol for MSU.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:12 PM ^
Mods_Can we move this to Diaries please?
September 20th, 2022 at 1:40 PM ^
Eh. Technically, I could see your point. But the board gets 10x the eyeballs and comments than diaries typically do, and it's not like they wrote a novel, so I'd be good with it staying
September 20th, 2022 at 2:30 PM ^
Agreed. This took a ton of time to make like a diary does, but OP 100% deserves all of the upvotes so let’s keep it here please.
September 20th, 2022 at 3:07 PM ^
Let's keep it here for now and then move it to Diaries so it doesn't fade away.
September 20th, 2022 at 11:34 PM ^
Please don't push the Maryland Look-Alike diary off the front page any earlier!
September 20th, 2022 at 1:12 PM ^
MnS Thanks for doing this!
September 20th, 2022 at 1:18 PM ^
Cool infographic. Thank you for sharing.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:19 PM ^
Alert Rutger that there might be a hole in the fence around the Garden.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:20 PM ^
Cool. Thanks for posting. I love geography.
(So emails from strangers or business with websites that don't include their locations frustrate me.)
September 20th, 2022 at 1:25 PM ^
Thanks for doing this. I think some people solve the problem of having multiple people come from one area by making a proportionally larger icon, don't know if your method allows this.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
I did explore options to do icon size or icon scatter automatically but it got into the weeds in coding language a little bit for me so I just manually moved the icons. This old dog wasn't ready to learn a new trick today.
September 20th, 2022 at 2:58 PM ^
PowerBI or Tableau can do this without any code. You'd almost have to do a sizing based on in-state ranking to really understand if we are recruiting well. I'm sure we could get 25 kids from any state in the country if we wanted, the question is if we're going into states and getting top recruits. Maryland has quite a few kids from Florida but I'm guessing I won't be that impressed if I look up the recruits.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:27 PM ^
I also have no idea what I learned from looking at this, but I very much enjoyed it! +1 from me.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:27 PM ^
Pretty cool, well done!
September 20th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
The thing I took away is the each division's teams have players from the same areas for the most part. West seems to recruit all the same places and East seems to recruit all the same places.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:38 PM ^
Interesting that there are so few Canadians. Seems like a natural expansion of the recruiting footprint for several B1G schools.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:46 PM ^
Agreed. Seems like there may be more NCAA basketball players in the Big Ten than NCAA football players. Canadian rules tend to result in different player shapes for the same positions, but there has to be a lot of untapped talent. Scouting may be difficult, although Michigan does tend to do a good job identifying and evaluating talent in states where the talent level isn't as high. Would love to see more Canadians on the team.
September 20th, 2022 at 2:36 PM ^
McGill and U. Toronto are joining the B1G. Taking all major North American markets!
September 20th, 2022 at 1:42 PM ^
Gotta really zoom out to see all of Michigan's players.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:42 PM ^
Love it!
- Maryland pulls a lot of players out of Florida.
- It looks like only Michigan, Ohio State and MSU are capable of recruiting in the Western half of the United States.
- I'm surprised that Penn State only has two recruits west of Austin
- Rutgers has the highest density footprint in the East, with ~80% coming from the NYC-Washington, DC area
September 20th, 2022 at 1:51 PM ^
Cool stuff... goes to show how even MSU has been in eastern Ohio and we haven't. We gotta get back in, and in a big way. Was surprised at our Illinois footprint.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:51 PM ^
Maps.
September 20th, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
Great content.
September 20th, 2022 at 2:21 PM ^
Man, Iowa really recruits Iowa well. Ferentz has really built a wall around the state.
Great stuff!
September 20th, 2022 at 2:27 PM ^
Holy smokes, this is probably one of my favorite things I’ve seen on here in a while. I know what I’m doing for the rest of the afternoon. Wonderful job, and great idea!
September 20th, 2022 at 2:32 PM ^
That's very cool. Thanks!
September 20th, 2022 at 2:39 PM ^
Logged in just to upvote. Keep it up!
September 20th, 2022 at 2:45 PM ^
shows we not only get all the best Connecticut players, but after last week, we're a LOCK for future generations to come!
September 20th, 2022 at 2:45 PM ^
Very cool.
You clearly have skills and free time.
Bet you also have nunchuck skills.
September 20th, 2022 at 4:30 PM ^
Great gif, considering that we own Idaho in recruiting.
September 20th, 2022 at 3:04 PM ^
Thanks for helping me waste some time during the work day. Nicely done!
September 20th, 2022 at 3:19 PM ^
WTF, is Tuck recruiting at highway rest stops across Michigan?
September 20th, 2022 at 3:30 PM ^
I logged on to upvote you for the icons(I don't want to be a spoiler). Loved the maps to! Well done!