The December 7, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated has an interesting article by Austin Murphy on the high number of Texas high school quarterbacks playing for leading college teams. “That a state with 8% of the nation’s population accounts for . . . nearly one fifth of all starting Division I-A quarterbacks,” writes Murphy “is . . . remarkable.” Murphy credits specialization in the position from an early age, the state’s policy of allowing "athletic periods" in place of PE classes and the prevalence of seven-on-seven summer football tournaments.
Murphy isn’t wrong, but the 8% figure is a bit misleading. One side effect of Texas’ love affair with football is that more kids play football in Texas than in any other state. About 14.5% of all of the nation’s male high school football players play in Texas. That percentage is considerably higher than any other state. California is second with 9%.
It also is interesting to note that of the quarterbacks who started for the top-25 Division I-A teams in the final game before the December 6 BCS poll, 5 were from Texas, 5 from California, 3 from Florida (which has one-fourth as many high school football players as Texas), and 2 each from Ohio and Pennsylvania. So, is the number of quarterbacks from Texas the result of a superior “system” in the state, a bigger talent pool than any other state, college recruiters following a fad, or some combination of all of these factors?
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