As you can see this is very similar to the visualization that ESPN provided. Makes complete sense. California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio rank as the highest states. These states are also extremely populous. I decided to make a chart showing the draft prospects per capita. This may give a better indication of which state provides the most "bang for your buck" talent wise.
Looks like the hotspots have changed. Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, and surprisingly Hawaii look to be the highest per capita states. Do these states just naturally have a lot of talent? Possibly. It may also be a factor of players from these states going to in state schools that have great NFL player development. LSU recruits a lot of in state players and are also great at developing next level talent. The same goes for Clemson and South Carolina. Also not surprisingly the north mid west and the north east do not provide any NFL talent.
It's an interesting topic. I love to watch college football although we didn't have good record last year. Indeed, some states are football desert. They either don't have good football team or they don't even have a team. According to your heat map, most of talented players are chosen from SEC. That is really a exciting news because SEC is really the toughest region in the U.S. I got confused about one state. Why is Hawaii also one of the hottest states to have prospective NFL players? They don't have good football team. I can't name any famous NFL player from Hawaii. Is the result from the players' hometown or their college?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting research. My first question is about the age of players used to create the heat maps. Are the heat maps created using athletes who were born in these states (I see where you mention in-state recruiting) or are do the states "heat signature" come from the colleges these athletes played for? Either way, I agree with Yao-Te Tsai about Hawaii being somewhat of an outlier. I did some research of my own and found this website (http://www.hawaiisportspage.com/tMain/NFLHAWAIIANS/tabid/262/Default.aspx) which lists the 21 current NFL players who went to college in Hawaii. I then found this data(http://www.databasefootball.com/players/player_bystate.htm?state=HI) which shows there are no current NFL athletes born in Hawaii. I'm not sure how accurate this data is, but this is obviously a low statistic (Auburn University has more than 21 current NFL athletes and I am fairly confident that the state of Alabama has yielded more than Hawaii). This begs the question, why is Hawaii popular using your information. That would be interesting to know if you happen to get a chance to analyze your data further.
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