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[QUOTE="Lou_C, post: 993321, member: 3201"]
That's interesting.  There's something to that, but it's not quite enough to explain it.  Look at high school football...high school football is nothing in the Northeast compared to the South.  And so the pro/college aspect doesn't fully explain it.  I do think it's part of it, even strictly from an attendance perspective, but the quality and enthusiasm of high school football is a gigantic difference, and one the Northeast struggles to overcome to this day.

My guess it that it goes back to bigger sociological and cultural factors to the shift in football power.  Such as the late and slow integration of the Southern schools.  It's possible that the South always had more and better players, but many had to go north/midwest.  Even after officially "integrated" I guarantee for a number of years there were unofficial "quotas" at some Southern schools.

I also wonder if scholarship limits affected it.  Obviously an Alabama or Texas, etc were always powers, but when they were taking 200 kids, it kept the talent from spreading around to other Southern schools.  Were there coaches in the Northeast that were infamous for hoarding athletes like that?  Maybe it happened less in the Northeast?

I think it's also clear that the schools in the South/Southwest culturally were less concerned with breaking/bending NCAA rules, which certainly helped shift the power as well.

I also wonder if the old-style television agreements that limited it to a game or two a week on TV perpetuated a bias toward traditional powers in the major population centers.  Everybody being able to be on TV certainly goes a long way to evening the playing field between a Boston College and Ole Miss.

It's an interesting question without probably any single answer.
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