Population base for recruiting in Big Ten

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MNSpaniel

MNSpaniel

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Ok ... so I got nothing better to do on a Sat. morning. I always hear about how MN should be able to recruit as easily as other schools. The comparison comes from similar climates. There are other factors other than climate base - a factor that really tilts things is the population of the state and surrounding states.

I used the 2012 census for the population totals. Then I took the states that border MN, Mich, Iowa and Wis. Four of the colder weather states in the Big Ten and seem on the surface to be similar to MN. I included the states that are connected by land or are connected closely by the great lakes. Here are the populations of the home based states and bordering states. Hope I didn't mess-up on the numbers. If you have nothing more to do than me you can check yourself.

Minnesota - 15,712,705
Iowa 30, 386,706
Wisconsin 36,938,338 (if you include Indiana which is just a hop/skip away 43,475,652)
Michigan 46,566,582

So you can see that Minnesota starts out as a definite disadvantage in population base. Then you add in that we are further away from other large population bases than the other big ten schools. Some kids like to get away from home but like to be close enough that their families can still travel to see them. So I think we lose out with those kids as well.

I'm not saying that we can't have a consistent winner here but that we are at a disadvantage right from the start. I think we have to do a better job recruiting than other schools. We also don't have the loyalty some high school players give to the major universities because they don't have to compete with pro sports. Iowa, and Neb. kids grow-up hoping to play for those colleges. Those colleges get the same media hype that the Vikings do in MN. I was actually surprised by the numbers. When I started doing this I thought it would be closer than it is.
 

You can also divide the pop of Iowa and Michigan in half because of Mich St and Iowa St.

Likewise with Wisconsin in BB with Marquette.

All three of those states also have more D1 BB schools.
 

Um I hate to tell you this but your numbers are way off. Here are the population numbers I got from U.S. Census Bureau website from their 2010 census.
Minnesota-5,303,925
Iowa-3,046,355
Wisconsin-5,686,986
Michigan-9,883,640
and Nebraska-1,826,341
So Minnesota is at no disadvantage against Iowa,ahead of Nebraska but doesn't have the name Nebraska does,close to even with Wisconsin, and everyone trails Michigan. I would have posted the 2012 estimates but they are all so similar to the 2010 numbers it wasn't worth it and 2010 are hard numbers not estimates.So things aren't quite as dire in the upper Midwest for Minnesota as you posted.
 

MNSpaniel said:
Ok ... so I got nothing better to do on a Sat. morning. I always hear about how MN should be able to recruit as easily as other schools. The comparison comes from similar climates. There are other factors other than climate base - a factor that really tilts things is the population of the state and surrounding states.

I used the 2012 census for the population totals. Then I took the states that border MN, Mich, Iowa and Wis. Four of the colder weather states in the Big Ten and seem on the surface to be similar to MN. I included the states that are connected by land or are connected closely by the great lakes. Here are the populations of the home based states and bordering states. Hope I didn't mess-up on the numbers. If you have nothing more to do than me you can check yourself.

Minnesota - 15,712,705
Iowa 30, 386,706
Wisconsin 36,938,338 (if you include Indiana which is just a hop/skip away 43,475,652)
Michigan 46,566,582

So you can see that Minnesota starts out as a definite disadvantage in population base. Then you add in that we are further away from other large population bases than the other big ten schools. Some kids like to get away from home but like to be close enough that their families can still travel to see them. So I think we lose out with those kids as well.

I'm not saying that we can't have a consistent winner here but that we are at a disadvantage right from the start. I think we have to do a better job recruiting than other schools. We also don't have the loyalty some high school players give to the major universities because they don't have to compete with pro sports. Iowa, and Neb. kids grow-up hoping to play for those colleges. Those colleges get the same media hype that the Vikings do in MN. I was actually surprised by the numbers. When I started doing this I thought it would be closer than it is.
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Population is the biggest factor for our football futility. The second is weather because kids can play more football in the south than in the north. Forty or more players will play for one team in a game, so a good football team requires lots of good players.

This is why Michigan, Ohio St., and Penn St. have been the best teams in the Big Ten. They don't deal with the population disadvantage. This is also why Michigan has started to decline. Their population is declining.
 

chris8372 said:
Um I hate to tell you this but your numbers are way off. Here are the population numbers I got from U.S. Census Bureau website from their 2010 census.
Minnesota-5,303,925
Iowa-3,046,355
Wisconsin-5,686,986
Michigan-9,883,640
and Nebraska-1,826,341
So Minnesota is at no disadvantage against Iowa,ahead of Nebraska but doesn't have the name Nebraska does,close to even with Wisconsin, and everyone trails Michigan. I would have posted the 2012 estimates but they are all so similar to the 2010 numbers it wasn't worth it and 2010 are hard numbers not estimates.But things aren't quite as dire in the upper Midwest for Minnesota as you posted.
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You didn't read carefully enough. He included border states. That was a really poor post for you first post. I'll give you a mulligan. :)
 



Ok yeah that's my bad for not reading closely enough, but I don't think it's the best way to determine population bases for recruiting. There's no guarantee your going to get kids from neighboring states. Plus in the case of a program like Nebraska, they get or maybe more accurately got, plenty of kids from California,Texas, and Florida coming to their program making it kind of moot what the population of the states immediately surrounding them were when it came to recruiting.
 

Ahh makes sense now. I don't think that it is a good indicator of recruiting though. Apparently Iowa has a bigger recruiting area because they border Illinois and Missouri? I would argue that if MN and IA programs are on an even level, MN could recruit those states just as well as IA. Neighboring state recruits are probably even tougher to get vs recruits from a few states away IMO.
 

To be honest however, that's one of the problems I think the big ten has in recruiting nationally these days. You don't have near the kids coming out of Ohio,Michigan,Pennsylvania etc as you once did. Most of the talent is down in the southern states these days and big ten teams have a hell of a time getting them to come up to this area of the country these days.I understand you want to mine as much of the local and neighboring talent as you possibly can,but you really need more than that if you have any hope of competing nationally at all.
 



How many good HS athletes choose hockey in the other states? The popularity of hockey in MN is rarely mentioned as a handicap to football, but it's big. Yes, I know many kids play both, but the trend is toward focusing on one sport at younger and younger ages.
 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
How many good HS athletes choose hockey in the other states? The popularity of hockey in MN is rarely mentioned as a handicap to football, but it's big. Yes, I know many kids play both, but the trend is toward focusing on one sport at younger and younger ages.
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I was going to add the fact that I think a lot of high level athletes in Minnesota choose hockey. I'm not sure if Mich. & Wis. have the same level of high school hockey as MN does. Someone mentioned that it is hard to recruit neighboring states. However, neighboring states have been able to recruit high level MN athletes over the years but we have not be able to do so with the same level of athletes they have.

So I think with weather, population base and distance from other population bases ... MN is an overachiever if they start having consistently good years.
 

Noticed in the game that there were three MN players on Wisconsin's side that played major roles in the game. That is were we need to get. Start taking top players from neighboring states. Not all the time but once in a while would be nice to steal some of their stars. I think the players were B. Kelly (DE) B. Allen (nose Tackle) Marz (OL).
 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
How many good HS athletes choose hockey in the other states? The popularity of hockey in MN is rarely mentioned as a handicap to football, but it's big. Yes, I know many kids play both, but the trend is toward focusing on one sport at younger and younger ages.
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Yeah, if we had more 5' 9" 180lb white guys and we'd be winning lots of B10 titles ... IALTO.
 



This is a silly way to try to justify football futility. Minnesota is a bigger state with more prospects than Iowa/Nebraska and is on par with Wisconsin. Who the "F" cares about the population of the states bordering schools? The U of M is located in a metro market which makes air travel to and from recruiting hotbeds easier and more affordable than Iowa/Nebraska. That same metro market is also a much more diverse area with more to do than in most other B1G markets. I'd much rather have the advantages or Minnesota than be located in a mostly rural state like Iowa just because I have the "advantage" of bordering Missouri/Illinois.

Lets stop trying to look for ways to excuse/justify losing. It's a tired, tired exercise.
 

This is a silly way to try to justify football futility. Minnesota is a bigger state with more prospects than Iowa/Nebraska and is on par with Wisconsin. Who the "F" cares about the population of the states bordering schools? The U of M is located in a metro market which makes air travel to and from recruiting hotbeds easier and more affordable than Iowa/Nebraska. That same metro market is also a much more diverse area with more to do than in most other B1G markets. I'd much rather have the advantages or Minnesota than be located in a mostly rural state like Iowa just because I have the "advantage" of bordering Missouri/Illinois.

Lets stop trying to look for ways to excuse/justify losing. It's a tired, tired exercise.
 

EG#9 said:
This is a silly way to try to justify football futility. Minnesota is a bigger state with more prospects than Iowa/Nebraska and is on par with Wisconsin. Who the "F" cares about the population of the states bordering schools? The U of M is located in a metro market which makes air travel to and from recruiting hotbeds easier and more affordable than Iowa/Nebraska. That same metro market is also a much more diverse area with more to do than in most other B1G markets. I'd much rather have the advantages or Minnesota than be located in a mostly rural state like Iowa just because I have the "advantage" of bordering Missouri/Illinois.

If you really knew what you were talking about you would notice that Iowa has more cities of 50,000 or larger than Mn. So they are not as rural as you think. Minnesota is as far away from the southern hotbeds of players as any school in the Big Ten. Having more than double the population base within driving distance to your university makes a difference. There is no justifying to anything ... just facts.

Lets stop trying to look for ways to excuse/justify losing. It's a tired, tired exercise.
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No excuses ... just fact. Population base, climate and distance from home along with winning traditional are the major factors in affecting any program. Not if they can conveniently catch an airplane.
 

Not that I agree population is the be-all, end-all but a more accurate thing would be to take the population from a 500 mile radius around your campus. But really, more than population is the culture of the area. New York City has over 8M people but only a couple of D-1 football prospects. If Minnesota is to become a consistent contender in football then one of the ingredients in the recipe is to put more emphasis on football at the youth level.
 

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