I watched the much ballyhooed Malcolm Brown / Aaron Green showcase showdown over the weekend and was glad to see Scipio had shared his thoughts on Brown, Green, et al.
Anyway, during the broadcast, the WWL tossed up a map of their ESPNU 150 which was interesting to me.
Exhibit A:
Once you finish admiring my kick ass TV and the Bionicle Warriors I have set up to protect it, I think you'll notice something off. I'm no Hecataeus of Miletus but the West seems to be just slightly under-represented on the list.
So I strolled over to the very handy USA Today tool that allows you to look at NFL talent by state (NFL Draft: Finding The Talent) and it seems to confirm that the SE shouldn't have a 4-5X advantage on the West.
Is it just the fact that ESPN gave the SEC 16 trillion dollars for TV rights? That doesn't explain the Rivals rankings which seem to be of a a similar distribution.
I guess it's as simple as lots of football crazy fans in a football crazy region with lots of money to be made through football crazy media.
Anyway, the conversation over at Recruitocosm about where we end up ranked by Rivals or ESPN made me remember this. Sure, rankings matter but only within a range.