in each state. Some states (like Missouri) have a ton of school districts. Every separate municipality, county, or neighborhood is a different school district with a different high school. Utah has almost exactly half the population of Missouri, but uses a different approach to schools. Your school districts, especially in the urban areas, are huge compared to those in Missouri. As a result, you only have 41 school districts and 360 public high schools in the state. We have 226 school districts and just under 1000 high schools.

We have 6X the number of school districts and almost 3X the schools for 2X the population, so our football talent gets diluted. Assume the proportions are the same, and Utah produces 15 real quality D1 players each year and MO produces 30 of them. Utah will have a higher percentage of their HS football players recruited because there are fewer HS football teams per 100K of population there even though the number of D1 players per population is the same.