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Sure, Florida is one of the most populous states in the country, but it represents only 6 percent of America’s population. Though, it’s probably not a surprise that Floridians have represented 13.7 percent of college football recruits since 2008. That’s surpassed (and just barely) only by Texas.
Football Study Hall tracked down data for every FBS team’s recruiting class from 2008 until this year and broke the recruits down by state.
In those six years, a total of 1,922 Florida high-schoolers went on to be recruited to Division I programs. Every single year, Florida came in second place behind Texas, but usually they were separated by just a couple dozen recruits. Texas’ total population is a little less than 7 million more than Florida (the difference is roughly the population of Massachusetts).
So on average, Florida represents 13.7 percent of all recruits, compared to Texas’ 15.3 percent and California’s 10.1 percent.
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Then Football Study Hall broke down the recruiting ranks as compared to a state’s population. Even then, Florida came in third, with 2.25 times the national average. The Sunshine State sits behind only Louisiana and Alabama.
Also remember that Florida has a notoriously older population. Senior citizens make up 17.3 percent of Floridians, the highest rate in the nation, and no one is recruiting from retirement homes. So we’d be interested to see how the recruiting numbers would stack up when the 18-and-under population is taken into account instead of just total population.
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