There were more than 25,000 Division I college football players in 2013. Mode Analytics chief analyst Benn Stancil tracked all of them.
In what had to be an absolutely massive project, Stancil charted every single player by home town, position, team and conference. His conclusions?
- Most players come from Los Angeles, New York, South Florida and Houston.
- Los Angeles is the most heavily recruited metro area in the country.
- South Florida puts out the most players per capita for just about every position - except kicker and punter.
- The most geographically diverse teams in Division I are all private schools with high admission standards, mostly located in the Northeast. Princeton, Harvard, Army, Notre Dame, Navy, Georgetown, Holy Cross, Columbia and Yale, all schools that have to search far and wide to fill out their rosters - and then fight off all the other schools on this list to get them on their team.
- Seven of the 10 least geographically diverse Division I teams are from Texas, and the other three from California. Eight of the 10 are public schools. North Texas, Lamar, Texas, Sacramento State, Cal Poly, Sam Houston State, Incarnate Word, Stephen F. Austin, Houston Baptist and UC Davis, all schools that trip over four Division I prospects while retrieving their morning paper.
- Unsurprisingly, the South is the most target rich recruiting area in the country.
Here's an example of the map, but you'll need to click over to the Mode Analytics site to see the real thing. You can sort by position, conference and school. You'll want to bookmark it.