This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
As the state continues to garner respect and attention nationally as a fertile football ground, Utah was recognized for its ability to churn out Division I recruits in a study — with data taken from 2008 to 2013 — published by SBNation.com on Wednesday morning.
Naturally, the country's "Big Three" of Texas, California and Florida lead the nation in producing Division I football players — mainly due to sheer population in those states — but the Beehive State was ranked as the No. 11 state in the country in terms of Division I recruits per capita.
In fact, Utah sits above states such as California, New York, South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia and the rest of the lot as a state that, per capita, produces 0.90 Division I recruits per 100,000 of its population.
That's 1.21 times the national average.
The top 10 per capita states are (in order): Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, District of Columbia, Mississippi, Texas, Ohio and Oklahoma.
"Utah is absolutely must-recruit territory," ESPN's West recruiting coordinator Erik McKinney told The Tribune in January. "You have to know who is in Utah at this point."
-Chris Kamrani
Twitter: @chriskamrani —