ESPN's state by state football rankings
 

We had a discussion about this a few months back, where we thought which state was the best 'environment' for football. ESPN has now weighed in on the matter, ranking each state by high school, college, and pro ball. It lines up pretty much with what we stated.

hxxp://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/story?page=communityfbIP

The North Dakota State Football team is a Division I-AA.
They beat Ball State and almost beat Minnesota, losing 10-9 in a game they dominated.

No need to check facts for this type of article, though.

While they say D1, they are only counting the D1A teams. (Otherwise CT has 4 Division 1 teams)

That makes sense, but they should say so (or did I miss that too?)

Otherwise people, like me, might assume they put it together with out doing any real research.

Well, and Virginia would have umm... at least 6 more by my count, that's without looking up ones that I missed...

hey Hawaii at 35th not bad for only having one football team past the HS level.

I'm surprised where Wisconsin is. The Packers really give this state a football boost. Without them Wisconsin would be ranked 20-30. Only one college football team in Division 1 (A or AA), and the high school teams aren't dominate. That's why Wisconsin mostly recruits out of state. It will be the first year in awhile where a Wisconsin native (Joe Thomas) get's drafted in the top 5 in the pro's.

:shakeshead:

Well whether they did their research or not, I think it's safe to say that there's not much going on football-wise in ND or SD as compared to the rest of the country.

This is from someone who grew up in SD.

I think you have your facts mixed up a bit. The current Wisconsin roster has 56 players from Wisconsin. The Badgers like most other schools definately go after out of state recruits. they would be foolish not to. When Barry Alvarez was hired back in 1990, one of the first things he said was that he wanted to throw a net over the state to make sure that he was able to get the top Wisconsin recruits. Current coach Bret Bielema has also stated that keeping in state recruits is a top priority.

-Cork

True, I wasn't complaining about the positions :p

When you rank 46th and 47th in population, you aren't going to have as many football players as other places.

Cork,

I'm not saying they don't recruit from Wisconsin, but nationally when people think of Wisconsin football, the names Chris Chambers, Ron Dayne, Jamar Fletcher, Lee Evans, and Troy Vincent come up. Players that came into the program from outside Wisconsin.

cuervo72,

Sorry about my grammer. I just woke up and wanted to make a comment to add to the conversation. If you didn't like my grammer you could have PM'ed. I probably would have told you to eat shit, but at least I wouldn't think you were an ass.

Good point. As a Badger fan and alumnus, I am more concerned with how the program does than whether every player comes from the state. Most Badger fan's realize that there is only so much "talent" in the state and that capturing the majority of it is one of the programs primary goals. The other is to bring in as much outside talent to create a football team that will be successfull. Barry Alvarez was able to do this and that is one of the main reasons that he was able to turn around the program and maintain it over his 16 years.

Personally, I take more pride in seeing Wisconsin Badger players in the NFL than I do in seeing NFL players who happen to be from the state of Wisconsin.

-Cork

But you see, I am an ass. A hard-ass from the QuikSand School of Grammar!



DON'T BE A SLACKER!!!

PM sent.