Great High School Football States

By: Donald Kavanaugh 09/02/09

How you doing America! I'm here for my first blog of Sounds of the Game and I was thinking about great high school football states. Now there are a few that i can think of off the top of my head. States like Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Louisiana, and California(not in that particular order) seem to be the power houses that jump out of my head at the time. Texas comes off with its legendary status of the Permian Panthers that was made so famous in "Friday Night Lights". You have states like Louisiana and Florida known for there speed and there recruits that stay down south and make the NCAA's SEC conference so powerful, and usually create great pro prospects. You also have states like Pennsylvania and Ohio who produce the greatest lineman (just ask Jim Tressel). Ohio and Pennsylvania also has great tradition in there college teams Ohio State and Pennsylvania(BIG TEN POWER!!!) but let me get back on subject to the high schools. Ohio and Pennsylvania recruits are always big and husky. Then u have a state like California. Now Cali is kinda a cheat because its pretty much the size of the 13 colonies so pretty much the size of the 13 states! so you know they have to produce great high school teams and College prospects. Here are some links that I found about high school football states. www.maxpreps.com/national/football.htm

To me I think the most powerful state in high school football would have to be Ohio. I say Ohio because of a few reasons. One reason that strikes me is ESPN does a series every year of Ohio against America, Ohio against America! and Ohio is currently dominating the series. Its called the "Kirk Herbstreit Classic", where Ohio teams play teams from all across Ohio. In 2007 Ohio went a dominating 8-1 against America in the "KHC". But what I think really separates Ohio from the rest of the states is the domination of one city. Now this hasn't really experienced much success in Pro Football, and there College Football Team is just now getting into the national scene(even though ESPN gives them no love). That city is Cincinnati. Cincinnati has some the greatest teams in high school history, and seem to always have several teams in the http://www.espnrise.com/ top 50. Teams like St.Xavier, Moeller, Princeton, Elder, Colerain, Wyoming, Winton Woods, Lakota West and Middletown just to name a few. Those teams right there can compete with any high school team in the country, and probably some college teams lol(Michigan and Notre Dame) I'm just playing goodness. But this is up for argument, so let me know what you think. I'll be back soon.