Recruit Comparisons - Texas, California, Florida

MeanGreen61 · February 15, 2008

Post from the MWC board by a Frog poster.

Players from California, Texas and Florida accounted for 1055 of the 2572 players who signed LOI, or 41% (this excludes the academies since they don't report classes). Some interesting trends I found between the three states (did this by hand from the links below so may be some inadvertant errors):

California- 373 players signed.

23% stayed in state

46% went to a school in an AQ conference (PAC10- 125, B12- 26, ACC- 6, BE- 4, B10-4, SEC-4, ND-3). All in all, 29 of 66 schools from AQ conferences signed a player from Cali (43%).

http://www.mapgameday.com/recruit/state/CA/

Texas- 370 players signed.

43% stayed in state

53% went to a school in an AQ conference (B12- 125, SEC- 20, PAC10- 19, B10- 17, ACC-10, BE-3, ND-1). All in all, 45 of 66 schools from AQ conferences signed a player from Texas (68%).

http://www.mapgameday.com/recruit/state/TX/

Florida- 312 players signed.

36% stayed in state

59% went to a school in an AQ conference (ACC-66, SEC-46, BE-34, B10-22, B12-12, PAC10- 3, ND-0). All in all 44 of 66 schools from AQ conferences signed a player from Florida (67%).

http://www.mapgameday.com/recruit/state/FL/

Some observations- Although all three states have similar numbers of D-1 prospects, Texas and Florida have more schools from AQ conferences competing for more players than Cali does. This allows leagues like the WAC and MWC to get higher caliber players from talent rich states because there is less competition. Florida in particular is a tough sell. The 13% difference between Cali and Fla in terms of % going to a team from an AQ conference equates to about 50 Cali players that are ending up in the MWC and WAC instead of an AQ conference. Texas has a higher % of kids staying in state, because there are so many D1 schools, but does get a lot of action from other AQ conferences as well; Its much more difficult for non-Texas non-AQ teams to recruit Texas- you have to compete against both in state schools and lots of schools from AQ conferences.

FirefightnRick · February 16, 2008

Interesting. I would like to have seen the percentages of the NON AQ conferences as well. To me there's more kids playing ball these days than ever before. Not everyone can play for the same top 25 programs, and not everyone can play for the AQ conferences and the talent trickles down. This may be why there were so many upsets in '07.

Rick