Race and College Football Production by State

Yesterday I showed that the South and states with relatively large African American populations tend to produce more college football players relative to the overall size of the population. Earlier, I showed that the types of college football players vary by their home state - e.g., the South produces more players at the speed positions.

Today, I take that a step further. Essentially, I've taken that data and run a few correlations. On one side, I have the relative ability of the state (controlling for the size of the relevant population-that is, college-aged men) to produce players or statistics. On the other hand, I have the percent of the state that is Black. A positive correlation means that as the relative size of the Black population increases, that state produces more players in that position or more of that statistic. Again I will emphasize that this is a simple correlation and, as such, hints at a pattern but is far from definitive evidence of anything.

Looking at the results, states with relatively large Black populations are exceptionally good at producing DBs, RBs, and WRs. They also produce an exceptional number of rushing and receiving yards. In all cases, the correlation is positive and large.

Yards	r
rush	0.598
pass	0.102
rec	0.658
Position
DB	0.701
LB	0.395
DL	0.457
OL	0.457
QB	0.390
RB	0.607
TE	0.220
WR	0.646
K	0.193