Talent Pool: Where the D1 signees come from

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This illustrates the biggest challenge for any gopher coach going forward.
 

It would be nice with some kind of graphic accompanying the article, but still the numbers are interesting. First off, 1 of every 111 HS football players from Florida will be getting a D-1 scholarship? That's unbelievable!

Second, Texas has over 50% more HS players than California, with a much smaller population (though I'm not sure how their HS populations compare, but still Cal must have more.)

Third, look at the Big 10 and tiers of #'s of players and Scholarships; you can see why OSU has an edge in the Big 10 when they can sift through so many stars in their backyard.
B1G states in order of D-1 scholarships
Ohio - 55,027 players, 144 D-1 Schollies
Illinois - 49,543 players, 73
Pennsylvania - 26,700, 60
Michigan - 43,678 players, 59
Indiana - 23,023, 31
Wisconsin - 29,442, 22
Minnesota - 25,433, 11
Iowa - 19,451, 9
Nebraska - 10,667, 8

You've gotta say based on this that Pennsylvania and Ohio are over-producing while MN, IA, & WI are under-producing.
 

Amazing that Virginia (among others) has almost the exact same # of HS football players as MN (I'd have expected it to be much higher) yet produced 5 times as many D-1 recruits. What is the reason for this? At least some of this must be an under-recruitment of MN/IA/Wisconsin?
 



howeda7 said:
Amazing that Virginia (among others) has almost the exact same # of HS football players as MN (I'd have expected it to be much higher) yet produced 5 times as many D-1 recruits. What is the reason for this? At least some of this must be an under-recruitment of MN/IA/Wisconsin?
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To me there are 3 huge factors.

1. Coaching from the youth system on up is better in other parts of the country.
2. Our best talent not only from an athlete point of view but coaching point of view goes into other sports...mainly hockey.
3. Our climate. In those other hot beds they are able to play 24/7 and refine their talents.

Also, it seems to me that we have poor participation from the African-American youth ranks in this state. I think it's a proven fact that when everything is said and done they produce the most football talent. It seems to me that one of the major problems in that regard is the st. paul/Minneapolis school systems are shot.
 

It would help the analysis if their data were accurate. Minnesota had 14 Division I signees this year, not 11.
 

In Minnesota more and more school districts are eliminating jr high sports due to finances. In MN association fees eliminate many players from the pool due to the fee structure. Affluent school districts appear to produce more players. The programs then have a disconnect with the high schools. I wonder if this is the case in other states surrounding us.
 



Accuracy please.

There is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO way Florida has only 38k HS football players. No way, no how. If Texas has 161k, Florida has at least 1/2 that.

Florida has more than 2x as many residents as Michigan yet the latter has 5k more football players? No way. I understand Florida has a large retirement community but that can't come close to offsetting the numbers
 

I also had the same doubts as you Pewter, so I did a little research...

According to their respective High School Athletic Association websites. # of High Schools participating in Football:
Florida - 550
Michigan - 629
Texas - 1168

This seems to match up with the high school football participant #'s reported in the article.

State Populations:
Michigan - 9.9 Million
Florida - 18.9 Million
Texas - 25.2 Million

Summary, there are a lot more blue hairs in Florida than one might expect.
 

JackiO said:
To me there are 3 huge factors.

1. Coaching from the youth system on up is better in other parts of the country.
2. Our best talent not only from an athlete point of view but coaching point of view goes into other sports...mainly hockey.
3. Our climate. In those other hot beds they are able to play 24/7 and refine their talents.

Also, it seems to me that we have poor participation from the African-American youth ranks in this state. I think it's a proven fact that when everything is said and done they produce the most football talent. It seems to me that one of the major problems in that regard is the st. paul/Minneapolis school systems are shot.
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Kinda related to your first point: There are more small schools in the upper midwest than most other parts of the country. In rural, small schools, the youth system is not nearly as good as larger schools/cities. I'm from rural Minnesota and we didn't play organized football until 7th grade. The coaching staffs at small school generally are not as good and much smaller than larger schools. More kids at small schools play multiple sports so they don't focus on just one sport as much as at larger schools (not saying that kids don't play more than one sport in large schools, but the percentage of kids who play 3 sports is probably much larger at small schools compared to the large ones).

I'm guessing the Minnesota number will be much larger next year, possibly over 20. Would be interesting to see the numbers from the past five years. By most accounts, this was a down year as far as talent goes in MN.
 

In essence, what the article tells us is that people who are mostly descended from Germany and Norway don't produce as many good athletes for playing football.
 



The biggest problem is that Mpls and St Paul have almost no youth progams for football. If they did the Public Schools in each city would produce anothe 5-8 kids each year or about one per High School.
 

North Dakota only had 1, Missouri pick Connor Mcgovern, says 2
 

Pewterschmidt said:
Accuracy please.

There is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO way Florida has only 38k HS football players. No way, no how. If Texas has 161k, Florida has at least 1/2 that.

Florida has more than 2x as many residents as Michigan yet the latter has 5k more football players? No way. I understand Florida has a large retirement community but that can't come close to offsetting the numbers
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In addition to the many folks in God's waiting room, Florida also has a very high population of Latin-Americans whose children don't generally flock to American Football. In Texas, High School football is a religion and you'd be shunned if you didn't play. Huge difference.
 

This is a similar issue for Gopher basketball as well, when you look at the number of McDonald's AA and top 100 players by state over the last 20 years. People want to always pinpoint one reason for the struggles of Football and Basketball - and there isn't just one thing - but the lack of local HS talent is a GIGANTIC reason why we continue to finish outside of the top 3 in the BT in both sports.
 

nsmike said:
The biggest problem is that Mpls and St Paul have almost no youth progams for football. If they did the Public Schools in each city would produce anothe 5-8 kids each year or about one per High School.
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I think this is the #1 problem. No offense to CDH, but it seems like they have produced more top football prospects then the entire city of Minneapolis combined in the last 20 years. That should not be the case.
 

howeda7 said:
I think this is the #1 problem. No offense to CDH, but it seems like they have produced more top football prospects then the entire city of Minneapolis combined in the last 20 years. That should not be the case.
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Don't tell anyone....but that is because all of the D1 prospects froom Minneapolis go to CDH, St. Thomas Academy, De La Salle, and Totino Grace.
 

josh087 said:
This is a similar issue for Gopher basketball as well, when you look at the number of McDonald's AA and top 100 players by state over the last 20 years. People want to always pinpoint one reason for the struggles of Football and Basketball - and there isn't just one thing - but the lack of local HS talent is a GIGANTIC reason why we continue to finish outside of the top 3 in the BT in both sports.
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It's far more of an issue for football though. If you could keep 80% of the in-state basketball talent, you could have a very good basketball program almost all the time. Imagine Luer and Royce White added to Nolen, Hoffarber and Williams, etc. The same would not be true for football, even if you could get the Michael Floyd's and Henderson's to stay, MN simply doesn't produce enough D-1 players.

The question is why more kids, especially in Minneapolis and St. Paul don't play football? Because they'd rather sit home and watch the Vikings? ;) Who can say?
 

Rosemountian said:
Don't tell anyone....but that is because all of the D1 prospects froom Minneapolis go to CDH, St. Thomas Academy, De La Salle, and Totino Grace.
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I understand that factors in, but does that really explain it fully? Even if that is where those top 20 guys that will go D-1 are going, where are the rest that we should be producing? And in a somewhat different topic, why does CDH produce more top-end guys then the rest on your list?
 

Another critical takeaway from this is the need for a great walk on program. If anything becomes clear when comparing recruiting stars to the NFL draft it is that, over the course of four years kids can 'catch up'. Minnesota may only produce 10 scholarship kids a year but we have more athletes than that.
 

howeda7 said:
It's far more of an issue for football though. If you could keep 80% of the in-state basketball talent, you could have a very good basketball program almost all the time. Imagine Luer and Royce White added to Nolen, Hoffarber and Williams, etc. The same would not be true for football, even if you could get the Michael Floyd's and Henderson's to stay, MN simply doesn't produce enough D-1 players.

The question is why more kids, especially in Minneapolis and St. Paul don't play football? Because they'd rather sit home and watch the Vikings? ;) Who can say?
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It definitely has a bigger impact on Football than basketball just on the sheer numbers. In basketball, if you can find one or two really good players it can change the fortunes of the entire team. It's a lot harder to do that in football because you generally need more than one or two guys (even with a guy like Cam Newton) to make that same impact.

Either way, its still a huge disadvantage, and unlike the Vikings ;), this is actually something that we can help change.
 

howeda7 said:
Amazing that Virginia (among others) has almost the exact same # of HS football players as MN (I'd have expected it to be much higher) yet produced 5 times as many D-1 recruits. What is the reason for this? At least some of this must be an under-recruitment of MN/IA/Wisconsin?
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Here is what I would call a major reason for this:

FBS schools in Virginia and within 100 miles +/- of Virginia's Border:
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Maryland
US Naval Acadamy
West Virginia
Marshall
Pittsburgh
Univ of Tenn
North Carolina
NC State
East Carolina

FBS schools in Minnesota and within 200 miles +/- of Minnesota's Border:
Minnesota
Wisconsin

My opinion is that the exact same caliber of player would have better chances of getting recruited from Virginia than from Minnesota. Its simple supply and demand. Virginia and Minnesota may have similar supply (# of HS players) but the demand in Virginia is MUCH higher due to the number of Universities recruiting there.
 

It is hard to compare state to state by these numbers.
In Minnesota the average kid plays 9 to 10 games per year with the accompanying practices. Over half the kids are done after week 8 and the first playoff. In other states, they may play more regular season games and have fewer feel good section games. In other words, they might play 10 or 12 regular season games and only a few make playoffs. More practice time, more games, more polished product.
 

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