Football States?

Coach,

I'm in Mississippi, and I would judge it as 8 overall. The MHSAA is football friendly in my opinion. There are 4 weeks of official practice time during the spring, usually ending in a spring game/jamboree of some type. During the summer, practice for 7-on-7 leagues and camps are allowed. Student participation seems to be higher in areas where football is the only thing to do during the fall. I know at my school, student participation is low. Alot of the kids have "hoop dreams", so basketball is king at my school. Usually, the larger communities have to compete with basketball for some of the best athletes, whereas football is king in smaller and mid-sized communities. As far as community involvement, it depends on how well the program has done in the past and community size. There are some really great booster clubs, especially in the 3A, 4A, and 5A ranks. Rivalry games will draw your biggest crowds, followed by a big time opponent.

As far as Pop Warner goes, the leagues around here start at ages 8-9. From my understanding, alot of kids start out on the middle school/jr. high level.

Per capita, MS produces a ton of D-1 level athletes with such a small population. Football is by far the state's leading sport. On that same note, the population is what stops the state from producing super teams year in and out. There is some very good football in this state. I grew up in East. St. Louis, IL during the 80's and early 90's and I've seen some really good football :-)

Coach Anderson, I hope this is the kind of info that you wanted.


Coach Kel


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This should have been 2 weeks of practice before spring game, not 4 weeks. Surprised I didn't catch this earlier
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I am in Southern California. I will only rate this part of the state because of its sheer size.
CIF (California Interschoolastic Federation) is the governing body and is decent. We have 21 days of organized Spring Football (no pads, but field equipment is allowed), Summer consists of organized practice (no pads, no field equipment) 7 on 7, and full contact camp for individuals is allowed (no team camps). August is dead for aprox. the first 3 full weeks. 2-a-days start 4th week in August (3 days conditioning) gear up on Thursday. Scrimmages are allowed first week of school (Labor Day week) and games start the next week for 10 weeks. Some leagues are 6 teams (5 league games) some leagues are 8 teams (7 league games). Playoffs start following week 10, and consist of 4 rounds (first round, quarter finals, semi finals, finals).

CIF does a less than adequate job in enforcing practice time violations, and are case by case (whim-to-whim) on hardships, transfers, early starts, etc... But, they will make you forfeit a playoff game (thus knocking you out) for not using the CIF sponsored football (even though you play with a certain brand all year long, they will bounce you for not complying). We used our regular balls playoff week 1 and were warned. We used them all the way up to teeing it up at 7:30 playoff week 2, when the officials told us if we didn't tee up the 'OFFICIAL CIF' ball they were going to call the game (forget the fact that the team we faced had about 17 transfers).

Attendance is not so big these days. SoCal is so populated, a small city is 75,000. Most cities have 2-3 teams and medium cities (200k-350k) have more than 6 Schools. Obviously communities are splintered into their own little factions). Lots of parents, students, and friends. Some alumni, a few local supporters, and unfortunately most of them think they can coach better than you. A few even offer up suggestions like, "throw the ball", "give it to ....", and " watch sweep, watch draw, watch counter, watch #48, watch backside............". But, my favorite one of all was, (I kid you not) "Coach, you suck so bad, you couldn't get deep in the gash with $100 on Valley Blvd" (this from an obnoxious and overwie -errrrr- supportive mother).

As far as youth Football goes. Some Pop Warner and Junior All-American coaches think they should be coaching HS and actually take time out of their (obviously boring) adult lives to give us stats and scouting reports (along with gamefilm and spread sheets) on the careers of 'their' future Heisman and Outland trophy winners. Yeah you heard me right....... stats and game film (cut ups and all).

But, outside crap be damned. The kids are worth it. I would rate SoCal Football an 8+. Nothing beats being under the lights on Friday night.

Coach G

You're killin' me -

Say What?? 9,000 is a normal draw for a home game!!! Where do I sign up? I'm calling my real estate agent as we speak (hee hee hee) Oh yeah........my wife.......and kids.........and job........

I've only heard and read stories about Texas Football. It sounds alot like a great meal - you can describe it and talk about it, but you don't know how good it REALLY is until you've experienced it.

Good Luck - It's week 1 in SoCal!

Coach G

I coach in Ohio. It is not as "freindly" as say Texas or Mississippi. We do not get an "athletic period", and we only get 10 days of off-season football coaching, starting in June and ending when 2-a-days start (second week in August). That being said, we are allowed to lift and condition year-round. However, we are not allowed to "coach football" on the field until June. Our 2-a-day period is only 2 1/2 weeks really (our first game is on the friday of the third week of 2-a-days). In that time period we can fit in 2 scrimmages! As far as football excitement goes, I would rival ours with anybody's in the country. Ohio is the birthplace of football (Massilon, Ohio). If you want to see how football obsessed people in Massilon are, rent the documentary movie "GO TIGERS!" For example, Massilon vs. Canton McKinley is the only high school football game that is on the betting line in Vegas. Catholic schools pretty much tend to dominate here overall. But, they don't recruit. Anyway, great football state, but not set up in a "freindly" way. 7 out of 10. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Played in Ohio, 8 out of 10
Coached in Georgia 9 out of 10
Coach in Indiana 6 out of 10

The rules in Ohio as stated by Clipper are as I remember...
Georgia is a football state through and through...
Indiana has a long way to go to catch up, but our summer rules have loosened up due to all the basketball coaches always cheating... so instead of trying to catch them all... they stripped the rules down to basically nothing...

I don't know how one could acquire such a statistic... but I would bet a telling number would be the % of Athletic Directors that are also Head Football Coach...

in Louisiana it all depends on where you coach. some places ( mostly private and a few public schools ) it would be anywhere from a 9 to 10 out of 10 on all subjects. now most parts put emphasis on winning but some don't give you the resources to get it done. our first tier teams are very good, but after that it drops off. alot of our problems come from the lack of money that a good program needs to have. each parish is responsible for the basic funding with the schools raising the rest and we have some very low economic parishes. if i had to put a number on the whole state it would be 7 out of 10. now it is the sport of the state, the others don't get the press as football.

In Feb 6, 2002 USA TODAY - they rank the top 5 High School Football areas in the US as :

#1 Los Angeles
#2 Chicago
#3 Houston
#4 Tidewater, Va
#5 Miami

When I coached in Tidewater, Va - the following players were playing:

Lawrence Taylor - ALL WORLD OLB
Dwight Stephenson - ALL WORLD OFFENSIVE CTR
BRUCE SMITH - ALL WORLD DE
Kenny Easley - ALL WORLD S/S
ETC.

I played HS ball and coached some in Illinois. I would rate Illinois a 8 out of 10 on your scale for football. The level of play in the big school classes is good, but I would put Illinois small school ball against any other state's class A or AA. The fans are knowledgable the the media coverage of the Cook and DuPage County area in the Chicago Tribune is excellent, and all the championship games are televised. I do think the new 8 class system waters it down a little bit. Every year it seems there are also a handful of nationally ranked players and teams. Joliet Catholic is a storied program as is Mt. Carmel. The DuPage Valley Conference is loaded all the time and there are other power leagues around the state as well.

Now I coach in Minnesota. I would give MN a 6 out of 10. Maybe I am being too rough but in comparison to other places I have lived the ball just is not as good. Don't get me wrong there are great teams and players up here, but the level of play from top to bottom is not a solid, and the playoff system needs to be overhauled. WE play 8 regular season games and if you go all the way you play 6 more playoff games. (I might get on a rant here) Basically everyone gets into the playoffs. Some sections have odd numbers of teams and so you can get a bye...2 years ago we missed the class A playoffs b/c a the #8 seed beat a nine-man team for one of it's wins. We play in the toughest class A league in the state, played 4 teams in the top 10 but since they beat more teams (lesser schedule) they got in. They got throttled in the first round though. I do give props to the Minneapolis Star Tribune and KARE 11 (TV) for coverage of high school football.

To add to Ledgersko's comments about Wisconsin. New this summer the WIAA allowed four days of player/coach contact within a camp setting. Coaches are also allowed to issue school owned equipment to players participating in camps. This year we held a four day high school and youth camp with our varsity kids in uppers. This was a week before the official start of the season. It was nice to get some early evaluation before the season started.

As far as school and community involvement goes. I think it is decieving in Wisconsin. Many of our larger cities do not boast great football. It is the smaller communities that produce great programs and great players. Although we are certainly not on a level with the true "football states" I think that small town Wisconsin football is great stuff. Entire communities get involved. Many of the smaller towns have strong booster clubs that really do a lot for kids. We've even seen our first high school only "field turf" stadium this year. In my community we get great student participation. We benefit from a youth program that is very connected to the high school. Pride in the program runs deep.

I know this wasn't part of the criteria but the level of players coming out of Wisconsin is getting stronger as well. The MAC has discovered Wisconsin to be a great resource for talent. A lot of pretty good kids that Alvarez doesn't snap up at UW are heading out to play D1 all over the country. So, Ledgersko, I'm asking nicely, can Wisconsin football get a little more of a nod? :-)

Speltze

Coach livebyiano,

TEXAS is a great HS, college, and professional mecca of football as witnessed by the number of great teams and players at all levels over the years. There is great football at all levels in any state you can mention. BUT, it is FLORIDA High Schools that are most heavily recruited by the college ranks and have been for many years.

JC PS: Just chat with the scouts that visit your campus, and see if they don't verify this.