EDITOR’S NOTE: In an 11-part series, Saturday Down South contributor Gary Laney looks at the states in the SEC and what areas in those states produce the most players, per capita. The method was to count players who have earned at least a four-star rating from 247Sports’ composite rankings, because that ranking takes into account the rankings of all the recruiting services. We then calculate how many of these blue chip recruits each metro area has produced per capita over a five-year period from 2012-16. At the end, we’ll rank the 10 biggest hotbeds in SEC country in per capita player production.

Tuscaloosa, home to the nation’s most dominant football program, sits in the west central part of the state, but most of the players and powerful programs come from the southern half of the state.

That’s what was revealed when we looked at the biggest recruiting hotbeds in The Yellowhammer State.

Three of the most prolific player-producing regions in the state are in the southern half, leading with the home area of the Crimson Tide’s arch rival, Auburn, which has the two most prolific prospect-producing metro areas in terms of per-capita prospect production — Montgomery and Auburn/Opelika — within a short drive of campus.

Mobile was the fourth-most prolific player-producing area in the state. And what’s more remarkable is most of the rural blue chip prospects who come from outside the metro areas hail from the southern part of the state.

Three of the “rural” players are from close to the Mobile metro (which also includes the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area), and a couple more are close to the Auburn-Opelika metro. Add them and Mobile would be the per capita champion.

Here’s what the data tells us, sorted by per capita production (the “Rural/other” category was left for last):

METRO AREA SIZE PER CAPITA 5 STARS 4 STARS
Montgomery 373,000 1/37,300 2 8
Auburn/Opelika 151,000 1/37,750 2 1
Florence/Muscle Shoals 147,000 1/49,000 0 3
Mobile/Daphne 615,000 1/52,205 3 9
Anniston/Oxford 116,000 1/58,000 1 1
Huntsville 441,000 1/88,200 0 5
Gadsden 103,500 1/103,500 0 1
Tuscaloosa 238,000 1/119,000 0 2
Birmingham 1.4 million 1/140,000 3 7
Decatur 153,000 1/153,000 0 1
Dothan 154,000 1/154,000 0 1
Rural/other 850,000 1/121,428 1 6

Three things to know

  1. I-10 is where it’s at: Only a sliver of the state rests on the Gulf of Mexico, but the Mobile metro area is part of a stretch of prolific player production along Interstate 10 stretching from Houston well into North Florida. It seems like players get better as one gets closer to the Gulf of Mexico.
  2. Alabama dominates: If there’s a four-star or better prospect in Alabama, there’s just under a 50 percent chance he’ll end up playing college ball in Tuscaloosa. Of the 60 blue chip prospects in this five-year stretch, 27 went to Alabama, 17 to Auburn and 16 to programs outside the state. The Tide dominates even more when it comes to five-star recruits. Of the nine the state has produced in the five recruiting cycles, eight have gone to Alabama. The one exception was Tre’ Williams, who went to Auburn out of the 2014 class.
  3. Good … but not the best: With 58 blue chip prospects in a state with just under 4.9 million people, Alabama’s per capita production of players is way above average. But it pales in comparison to Louisiana, a state with slightly fewer people (4.65 million) but with 85 such prospects in the same time frame. It’s a good thing for Alabama that Nick Saban is able to recruit nationally, including stealing stars like Cam Robinson and Tim Williams from Louisiana.

Program to know

While Hoover High in suburban Birmingham is the more known program, thanks to the MTV program “Two-A-Days” several years ago, Prattville, a town in suburban Montgomery, has been a more efficient producer of high-end talent in recent years, with four recruits of the four-star variety in the last five recruiting cycles.

They said it

“Some of the best coaching in Alabama exists in the southern region, in that Mobile area. Programs like St. Paul’s and Spanish Fort have great programs. Also, location plays a factor in that they are just a few hours away from LSU, Florida State in Tallahassee, along with Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss. That allows them to get exposure. I wouldn’t say there’s more talent there, but there’s more opportunity to be seen and a solid player development infrastructure, not only in the schools, but outside the schools as well.” — Recruiting analyst and long-time 7-on-7 coach James Smith of NOLA.com.