Where college football players come from

[Infield Infidel]

http://blog.modeanalytics.com/where-football-players-call-home/
 

Fully interactive map here http://mode.github.io/blog/2014-01-16-football-hometowns/index.html#
 

 

[PaulinMyrBch]

So the per capita is all the same shade except in counties that fall into small sample sizes. I thought there would be some hot beds in certain areas, reality is counties with the most kids have the most players. 

 

[RingoOSU]

Meh, I guess if you know the area you can see some trends. Like in Oklahoma, Oklahoma county has about 15% for people than Tulsa county, but Tulsa is a darker red. Probably because of  Union and Jenks dominating the state for so long. Tulsa County seems to be a darker red than a lot of larger counties in the region, with the exception of Texas. Union and Jenks also are two of the richest school districts in the state too, so that's probably a bigger factor than per capita.
 
Edit: If you go to the link and click on per capita instead of count, then you can see the true hot spots.

 

[PaulinMyrBch]

I must have clicked on a position before I clicked per capita because my per capita map was nearly all one shade.  I've got it up as overall and yea, you can see some hotbeds on that one.
 
Cool, especially when you look at the area you know.

 

[inJacobyWeTrust]

I always thought the stork brought them.

 

[Infield Infidel]

My favorite map is K/P. They are mostly in southern California, Dallas, south Florida or oddly, Chicago. There are very few from the Deep South, which may explain why SEC teams, which generally recruit ridiculously well, at times have trouble finding decent kickers

 

[kenneycb]

My favorite map is K/P. They are mostly in southern California, Dallas, south Florida or oddly, Chicago. There are very few from the Deep South, which may explain why SEC teams, which generally recruit ridiculously well, at times have trouble finding decent kickers

IIRC the youth soccer leagues in the Chicagoland area are pretty solid so that might explain that.  Not to make too obvious a point, but I imagine there's high correlation between K/P and the popularity of soccer.

 

[RingoOSU]

My favorite map is K/P. They are mostly in southern California, Dallas, south Florida or oddly, Chicago. There are very few from the Deep South, which may explain why SEC teams, which generally recruit ridiculously well, at times have trouble finding decent kickers

What I find the most interesting about that article is the University of Texas is so low ranked among its geographic diversity. I know Texas is a hotbed of recruiting, but I wonder if spreading their net would help them get over their recent slump. Of course, firing Mack Brown helped that more.