Phenomenal analysis on college football in today's Wall Street Journal

I’ll tell you upfront - this article doesn’t deal specifically with the Huskers. Still, it’s a must-read article for any serious fan who appreciates a 10,000 foot view of the college football landscape.

The Wall Street Journal only publishes maybe five sports-related stories per month, but whenever they write about college football, you know they’re going to drop some serious analytical knowledge on your ass.

This article from today’s WSJ is called “What the Rise of Southern football Says About America”.

Before anyone says, “Hey, what about the Big XII?“, the Journal had another terrific article back in October on Oklahoma and the other high-octane Big XII offenses.

That’s a “must read” article as well. But first, check out some of the eye-popping stats from this piece de resistance.

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Highlights from today’s WSJ article:

* In recent years, the South has undergone rapid growth. Twenty-seven of the 50 fastest-growing metropolitan regions in the country in 2007 were in the South, while personal-income growth in the region outpaced the national average over the past decade.

*Among states that have more than 10 native sons playing in the NFL, the top six producers by percentage of population are Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

* The Southeastern Conference has an unrivaled 11-4 record in the Bowl Championship Series since 1999.

* SEC teams lead the nation in average attendance, have five of the 12 highest-paid coaches in college football and just signed two broadcast deals worth as much as $3 billion over the next 15 years.

* Traditional Northern football states like Pennsylvania, which previously sent players to heralded northern programs like Penn State, Notre Dame and Ohio State and has stocked the NFL for decades, are falling behind.

* Today there are 45% more native Louisianans (64) than Pennsylvanians (44) in the NFL, even though Louisiana has only one-third of Pennsylvania’s population.

* Their average undergraduate enrollment of an SEC school is roughly 18,000, which is significantly smaller than the averages for the Big 12 and Pac-10 conferences.

* The median household income in Ohio, the poorest state represented by the Big Ten, was $4,500 higher than the average median income for all the SEC states last year.

* Only three SEC member schools have endowments larger than $1 billion as of the 2007 fiscal year, while half or more of the schools in other major conferences like the Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-10 and Atlantic Coast Conference do.

* Nonetheless, in 2006, four SEC schools — Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and LSU — raised $35 million or more in athletic donations, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education survey. That figure beats every school in the Big 12, Big East and Pac-10 that responded to the survey.

* Within the nine SEC states, two-thirds of the governors and U.S. senators are SEC alumni. In the eight Midwestern states that make up the Big Ten, just over a third of governors and senators went to one of their states’ major football schools.

* Just three SEC schools — Vanderbilt, Florida and Georgia — were cited among the top 80 universities in U.S. News & World Report’s 2009 college rankings, while all 11 members of the Big Ten were in the top 80.

* Every SEC school but Vanderbilt has been on probation in the last 25 years.

* The SEC has won three national college football titles in five years, including the last two by blowout. And although it’s considered a “down year” for the conference, tomorrow you have Alabama and Florida, ranked No. 1 and No. 2 by the Associated Press, playing for the conference title — with the winner likely heading to the national title game.

And finally, the quote of the article:

The breadth of the South’s football culture creates a fanaticism that crosses all lines. People who didn’t attend the schools, or go to college at all, still support them, and will even make donations. It’s a group that insiders call “dirt-road alumni.”

“Half the people in that stadium can’t spell LSU,” says political consultant James Carville, an LSU alumnus. “It doesn’t matter. They identify with it. It’s culturally such a big deal.”

To read the whole piece, click here.

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