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Leigh Steinberg Blog: How Can Two Tiny States Dominate in College Football?

http://www.rantsports.com/clubhouse/201 ... -football/

Neither of them has ever employed June Jones?

MustangStealth wrote:Neither of them has ever employed June Jones?

Good answer.

It could have been worse.

Mississippi has never been able to keep their best recruits at their states flagship programs. Segregation, budget, and Bear Bryant have all kept them from reaching their full potentials. They watched players like Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, and Steve McNair go and play at Historically Black Colleges on their way to the NFL and in some cases, NFL greatness due, at least in part, to their issues with race. Ole Miss and MSU have also usually been at the bottom in terms of budget and facilities - Vaught Hemmingway was an utter dump in the late 90's and early 2000's. And the stiff competition from other programs made it even worse - Bear Bryant built dynasties at Alabama getting Mississippi recruits like Sylvester Croom. All the Rebels and Bulldogs ever had to do was keep the best talent at home and they were going to be able to compete with anybody.

California has 38 million people and Texas has 23 million. Yet roughly the same number of high school kids play football in each state. This means Texas has twice the young athletes who choose to play football.

So there are roughly the same number of football players in both states, but Texas has twice as many football players?

Only in Leigh's world does 1 = 2

He speaking of the rate.

I think Couch em is right

Some years back I believe it was Texas Football that ad an article about the large number of All America players from Mississippi compared to the population. I suspect the math was more rigorous than the Steinberg analysis although he seems to think much the same..

couch 'em wrote:He speaking of the rate.

Then he is not much of a writer.

Agreed. Poor writing. Isn't is because in AL and MS, it's all they got? CA and TX have many other pro sports and power5 teams so fans aren't rabid for the single big time sport in town (college fb). Caring a lot helps.

It's like asking why Jamaica beats our [deleted] in the 100m dash. They care about running and we don't.

fifty wrote:Agreed. Poor writing. Isn't is because in AL and MS, it's all they got? CA and TX have many other pro sports so fans aren't rabid for the single big time sport in town (college fb). Caring a lot helps.

It's like asking why Jamaica beats our [deleted] in the 100m dash. They care about running and we don't.

There's a lot of truth to that. I grew up in Mississippi and now live in Alabama and, to be honest, college and high school football really is about all we've got. That's particularly true when you get out of the city (and I mean city - Birmingham is the only large metropolitan area in either state at a bit over 1 million people).

The interesting thing, though, is that the 2 Mississippi schools are probably almost as passionate about baseball as they are about football. Obviously, the attendance numbers are nowhere near as large as they are for football... but, Ole Miss and Mississippi State pour tons of money into their baseball programs that most schools nationally don't. The baseball coaches at both schools are paid over $600,000 a year and both schools are in the top 5 annually in baseball attendance. As an additional illustration, it was estimated that over 10,000 Ole Miss fans showed up in Omaha for the College World Series. For whatever reason, the Alabama schools don't share that passion for baseball - they are 100% football even when their other programs are doing well.

For many years Southern Miss was equal to or better than either Ole Miss or MSU. Their campus was newer and put the other two to shame at one time. My grandfather was an Ole Miss grad, and I remember his pals used to argue that if Mississippi only had one major state school, like Louisiana or Arkansas, it would have a football legacy equal to or better than LSU's.

Speaking of which, Louisiana seems to produce a lot more talent than its population would dictate.

LS....why would you read anything from him.....

Texans are rapid about college football-SMU fans are not. Texas(100,000), A&M(110,000), Tech(62,000) TCU(42,000) and Baylor(45,000) have all sold out their season ticket allotments in recent years.

I think you mean rabid counselor.

And in 35 yrs we haven't had much to be rabid about. Let UT fans be irrelevant for 35 yrs and see how many are still around.