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State Of Texas Recruiting Context: Part II

Posted by Scipio Tex on January 21st, 2009 under Football, Recruiting

Take a look at this map that I created showing BCS recruits in the state of Texas in 2008.

A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it? Despite that, I’ll add some more.

Draw a line from Wichita Falls straight down to San Antonio. Now go straight across eastward to the Louisiana border and stop. Draw the line up the Louisiana border north all the way to the Arkansas border at Texarkana and then connect it back to Wichita to include DFW.

You’ve just drawn the actual map of Texas talent. 70% of the geographical space in the state is barren in terms of talent and though there are places in West Texas, far North Texas, and South Texas with great passion for football, that passion doesn’t translate to quality or numbers. Spare me the Mason Walters, Garrett Porter, David Thomas, Jerry Gray citations. Citing the exception merely proves the rule.

Effectively, the football rich portion of Texas isn’t much different in size from the state of Alabama.

You can also see the thick clumpings of talent on our borders and why LSU, OU, and Arkansas are our most dangerous out-of-state raiders. Fostering a strong Texas state identity is important if a kid is on the Gulf Coast – it’s easier to drive to Baton Rouge than to Austin. Dallas is a wash.

Thoughts?

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27 Responses

  1. PatronSaint said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 4:54 pm

    I think you could draw that same line and encapsulate 70% of the Texas population

  2. HenryJames said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 5:08 pm

    And 95% of the African American population.

  3. Scipio Tex said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 5:08 pm

    Patron:

    Great point.

    It’s not just population density though – it’s also linked heavily to culture/race.

    Longview/Tyler/Marshall combined are probably 1/8 the population of greater El Paso, but they put out more talent by a significant margin.

    In populational terms, East Texas significantly outperforms expectation. South Texas and El Paso vastly underperform. West Texas probably is at expectation – it’s just hugely underpopulated – reinforcing your point.

  4. Scipio Tex said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    HJ beat me to it.

    Though if you gave me the Island of Samoa (population 180,000) and I can get football in all of the high schools, I’d take that as a recruiting ground over any comparably sized municipality in the United States.

  5. Steve Nebraska said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 5:34 pm

    Central Texas has actually been producing more talent than usual as of late. Austin is still pretty bereft, but the surrounding counties have been fertile ground lately. Aaron Williams, Kirkendoll, Okafor, Gilbert, to name a few. Sorry, Blake Gideon. No dice.

  6. Scipio Tex said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    Steve:

    That trend will continue. That’s a direct function of both affluent whites building Westlake model schools all around Austin (Cedar Park, Leander, Lake Travis, Westwood) and motivated lower middle class blacks abandoning East Austin and AISD for home ownership and better neighborhoods in Pflugerville and Round Rock.

    These suburb towns programs have huge sophisticated athletic programs where the talent no longer falls through the cracks.

  7. Bartoncreek said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 6:04 pm

    Central Texas has been producing a lot more talent lately. I have been wondering why myself. I think some of it has to do with the shift in growth towards the suburbs.

    No longer are players languishing in schools with poor facilities and resources. Many have moved out to Pflugerville, Round Rock and Leander/Cedar Park. These are better schools that really place an emphasis on athletics and have the resources to do something, while at the same time offering very affordable housing options.

    The other thing that I am aware of is the rise of Pop Warner football in the Austin area. The kids are playing at much younger ages than they were 10-15 years ago. LCP, Pflugerville, Lake Travis and Westlake all play each other from age 8 on up. Despite some of the negatives of playing so young, these kids are learning the game and competing at a high level early on. This isn’t everybody gets a ribbon stuff. It is 3-4 practices every week. If you don’t practice you can’t play.

    As for Lake Travis, it is just becoming an ex-athlete haven. There are countless ex-collegians, ex-NFLers, ex-MLBers and even ex-NBAers moving to the Lake Travis area. Combine that with one of the best youth programs in the city, a ton of cash and you have a power for years to come. Westlake beware.

  8. Stuck in MN said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    I’d be curious to see what the BCS scholly player per capita of that area you drew- certainly better than the current 1 in 25k for the entire state of Texas.

    If you extend the eastern border of that all the way to the Atlantic you get the best per capita concentration of talent in the nation- louisiana- 1 in 24K, miss.- 1 in 20k, alabama- 1 in 19k, florida 1 in 19k, and georgia, 1 in 20k.

  9. srr1950 said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    Pflugerville has seen an influx of talent thanks to the Dell campus, among other things.
    And as Scip noted, there is also a trend of middle class blacks moving north, a lot of whom played for LBJ or Reagan when they were successful, and football is important to them.

  10. Bartoncreek said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    Scipio beat me to it. Looks like we are thinking along the same lines. I agree that the trend will continue. There will be more and more D1 athletes coming out of the Austin area.

    This can only be a great thing for the Horns. We took 4 this year alone with two of them being 5 star recruits. Mims is for real as well. That is amazing given the past history of the Austin area. I would expect us to take 2-5 kids almost every year from Austin for the next number of years. These are in the bag kids too. If we offer, they accept.

  11. CrazyJoeDavola said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 8:23 pm

    It’s not just the athletic component either. Those urban and suburban areas are, generally speaking, going to do a much better job of educating their players, if only in terms of taking the SAT/ACT.

    Look at that huge hunk of space in deep East Texas. I’m guessing that DFW and Houston areas have a little more going for them in this area than, say the the Lufkin/Nacogdoches metroplex does.

    I wonder what, if any, effects the current economic conditions will have on recruiting. I’d wager they’d make the “regionalism” you discuss here even more pronounced. Teams that are getting squeezed at the margins will find it even harder to find work-arounds. A&M, for example, could be in for some real long-term issues if they don’t get turned around in a hurry.

    Tech, too, if/when Leach departs.

  12. Scipio Tex said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 8:51 pm

    It looks like we’re all in raging agreement on Central Texas football.

    And I agree, that’s a very nice demographic development for the Longhorns – those local kids are slam dunks.

    CJD:

    Yes, yes, and yes. As an aside, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Quan, Mike Oher, Jeremy Maclin are all guys who achieved because a stable local family essentially adopted them wholesale. Had they stayed in their homes and peer groups, I doubt any of them make it to college football.

    The suburb/town schools are an institutional version of that. They provide these kids with positive peer groups and can show them another world.

  13. Scipio Tex said:

    January 21st, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    Tech can’t leave Leach anymore than Leach can leave Tech.

  14. 71grad said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 1:59 am

    An excellent study. The cycles that different ares go through is very interesting. Of course West Texas will never have the numbers of recruits that Houston puts up, but the area is down.
    DFW has had swings in recruiting numbers for top programs. The Houston area is a recruiting Mecca right now. The suprise to me has always been El Paso; a city I regard as a sleeping giant.

  15. Sessamoid said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 4:25 am

    El Paso is not a sleeping giant. The primary sport in El Paso is futbol, and the average height of adult males in that city is probably no more than 5′7″.

  16. Steve Nebraska said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 6:27 am

    I agree on all points regarding the trends in Central Texas. Austin High still sucks, unfortunately, but that is neither here nor there (nor unexpected).

  17. Nero said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 8:44 am

    Nobody comes out of Midland/Odessa anymore?

    Also, Abilene and San Angelo combine to be the economic and population hubs for the entire area between Midland and DFW. They should be representing more.

  18. Nero said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 8:47 am

    Also, it is interesting to see the per capita numbers for each state, but what I’d really like to see is the per capita data for metro areas. I’m willing to bet that the Golden Triange (Beaumont, Port Arthur, Nederland, Port Neches – Groves, Bridge City, Orange, Lumberton) Produces players at a higher density than any other region of the state.

  19. HenryJames said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 am

    Per capita I would guess that Louisiana would be first.

  20. Nero said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 9:02 am

    HJ –

    Stuck in MN above lists per capita numbers for states that I can’t verify at the moment, but have seen before and look accurate. According to those Alabama and Mississippi are above Louisiana. I was just speaking of areas within Texas though.

  21. Scipio Tex said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Nero:

    Dave Campbell’s Texas Football used to have per capita regional data every year. Obviously, South Texas was always a barren wasteland. I’m not sure if he does it anymore as I stopped buying it sometime around the time I realized that the product now sucked.

    That doesn’t dissuade me from buying Athlon, so I’m not sure I can explain my discrimination.

    If anyone has it, post it please.

  22. Rick Barnes said:

    January 22nd, 2009 at 11:29 am

    Who is Andy Staples?

  23. David McWilliams said:

    January 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 pm

    What’s the point of the article, that Texas produces more BCS players than Alabama? Does that suprise anyone? Birmingham, the largest city in the state of ‘Bama is about the size of Austin. The closest metroplex Alabama has that comes close to Houston or Dallas is Atlanta, then Miami, Florida. Neither of those are geographically close to Alabama. The 1000 word picture that I see is that you like to pin-prick stuff. And the comment about Samoans, I haven’t seen one Samoan playing QB, RB, WR or CB. Mostly linemen, a couple of LB’s. You’re not gonna build a winning team around that.

  24. dasmithjones said:

    January 23rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    I think the point is this: It is great to be a Texas Longhorn football fan.

  25. ponderos said:

    January 23rd, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    Sweet map, scipio.

    As far as Central TX talent, I can think of maybe a handful of D-1 players (Victor Ike and Derrick Strait just off the top of my head) that came out of AISD in the last 10 years. I think for Central TX recruiting purposes, you have to get outside AISD.

  26. Scipio Tex said:

    January 23rd, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    ponderos:

    Yeah, that’s what we just described if you read the comments.

  27. ponderos said:

    January 24th, 2009 at 9:33 am

    I should get a refund from my Evelyn Woods course.

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