VolsSince78
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I lived in Houston. I'm very familiar with the demographics of the state. Thats also where I began my 3 year stint in the world of football scouting.
However, I am from the deep south. I coached high school ball for a time in North Carolina and played college ball in the south.
With that said You are correct in that Houston and Dallas Fort Worth Area are the main talent hubs of talent in the state. But places like Midland, Odessa and many many other small Texas town eat sleep and breathe football. Talent comes from these places as well. Cedric Benson from Midland. Tony Brown from Beaumont. Both 5 stars, that weren't from the metro areas.
As you also know, Houston and Dallas in themselves are spread out cities. Public trans is kind of an afterthought. Get in your big truck and go where you need to go down there haha. Geography plays a part.
If you could draw a line encircling from Harris County up to Irvine and west to Austin south West San Antonio including suburbs of each area. That would still be a significant amount of square miles. Those cities are not next to each other. Mid-State TN is closer to Knoxville in relation than DFW to Houston.
My point is there is more talent in a 5 hour radius from Knoxville ( Mid-State TN, West Carolina Charlotte, Rockhill-South Carolina, Louisiville-Cincinnati, Atlanta-Metro, and Alabama) Than the entire state of Texas which EXCEEDS 5 hour radius because the state is so big. I didnt include Memphis.
As far as the popularity. Tennessee has the SEC affiliation like Texas AM that is quite frankly dominating Talent in Texas as result for the Aggies. I only used NC, TN, GA to illustrate a point. The truth is that 5 hour radius covers multiple states all with a similar demographic in their pie section. The talent is more dense where UTK footprint is than UTA. And Atlanta-Metro alone exceeds Houston Area in shear talent. I know this for certain. Atlanta exceeds Dade County in South FLA as well.
There's a lot to consider in my argument that I'm leaving out as well.
MAIN POINT- More football talent in the 5 hour radius of Knoxville than All of Texas.
If you’re recruiting to Texas, you don’t need to spend time in West Texas. If you get a strong share of top recruits from Dallas and Houston, you’ll compete for (and likely win) the Big 12, and be in the CFP picture. Dallas and Houston are a quick trip to Austin, and you only have one nationally relevant rival (aTm) in your region. IMO Baylor, TCU, Houston, TTU aren’t quite at Texas or aTm level in a typical year.
Using the same criteria you used earlier (4 and 5 stars in the current recruiting class), Dallas metro has more blue chippers than Atlanta metro (metro area defined as less than one hour radius by car from downtown). Dallas and Houston metros combined have more than twice the # of blue chippers as Atlanta metro.
I’d be willing to bet that if we used other criteria like current NFL players, the Dallas and Houston areas would compare well to the Atlanta area.
You indicate there is strong talent within a 5 hr radius of Knoxville. I agree 100%. However, the large majority of that talent is located out of state from Knoxville (major exception now Nashville metro). Plus, most of these recruits in the 5 hr radius live closer to one or more other P5 programs than UT-Knoxville. So, unfortunately most of these recruits have handier P5 options, and not many grew up thinking of Knoxville as their first choice for college football.