Boise, California

[fredthefalcon]

I know its not located in California but a look at the team rosters of the major sports at BSU would make you think that. There are 19 Football players on the Boise Roster from Idaho; there are 0 on the basketball team, there are 2 Idahoans on Women's BB; and there are 0 on the softball and volleyball teams. I didn't bother to count up all the California athletes but it was a heck of a lot. Just an interesting fact and it is obvious that BSU heavily recruits the Golden State but is also active nationwide. The Men's BB team has players from all over.

[broncobybirth]

That's very true, but proportionately we have a pretty high number of Idaho athletes. Consider the population of California is 37m, whereas only 1.5m reside in Idaho. Ohio is listed at 11.5m for reference.

[Chimie]

When your home state has one of the lower population totals, it only makes sense that they get talent from out of state.

California has the highest population out of any state, and despite having more colleges than you can shake a stick at, there aren't many mid-majors among them, especially when your primary d1 schools are Cal, USC, and UCLA, which are all, or have been powerhouses in Football/Basketball. Not to mention Stanford is a little difficult to get into in terms of grades.

It leaves those players who aren't quite at the level required for USC, but still leagues above the lower division teams to chose between San Diego State or go out of State. Boise is a great program, and arguably one of the best Mid-Majors ever. It makes sense they can draw tons of talent from the region.

[Bleeding Orange]

You should probably change the title to UC Boise. When was at UofA everyone called it UC Tucson because so many students came from CA because the out of state tuition at UofA was cheaper than in-state tuition in California in many cases. That was with the general student population, though, not just athletes. I don't know if BSU has a lot of students coming from California, just because of geography. I have always been amazed at how well Boise can recruit out West. It is a relatively remote city with little population density around it, but their coaches always do a phenomenal job!

[psc2009]

That's pretty common. Okahoma's roster is mostly Texas boys as well. Small populations states have to pick off the big states or they won't be successful. My prime example (since I lived there for a while) was New Mexico. It's a 1-star state and they don't recruit well in either Texas or California. The result is that they're at the bottom of the WAC and Mountain West.

[fredthefalcon]

That's pretty common. Okahoma's roster is mostly Texas boys as well. Small populations states have to pick off the big states or they won't be successful. My prime example (since I lived there for a while) was New Mexico. It's a 1-star state and they don't recruit well in either Texas or California. The result is that they're at the bottom of the WAC and Mountain West.

As my wife remarked when we traveled through New Mexico, "Miles and miles of nothing." Probably an overstatement but there are areas like that.

[Bleeding Orange]

That's pretty common. Okahoma's roster is mostly Texas boys as well. Small populations states have to pick off the big states or they won't be successful. My prime example (since I lived there for a while) was New Mexico. It's a 1-star state and they don't recruit well in either Texas or California. The result is that they're at the bottom of the WAC and Mountain West.

As my wife remarked when we traveled through New Mexico, "Miles and miles of nothing." Probably an overstatement but there are areas like that.

That isn't an overstatement at all. There are some very, very beautiful parts of that state, though. The immediate area around Las Cruces leaves a lot to be desired, but outside of that it is an extremely geographically diverse state. The white sands in Alamagordo are simply stunning.

Man, can you tell I'm just killing time before I get to leave work and go to the game?