football hotbed. People in that state prefer golf, surf, tennis, volleyball, baseball, etc because the weather is so great in part.

Utah is truly the only football hotbed in the west, the only western state that comes within visual range of the SEC states.

But you can point to the success of UO to show that it doesn't always matter what the local high schools are doing. Oregon rates even lower than Colorado on talent, so where are players coming from? Largely CA, HI, UT, that's where. The LA schools also show that sheer population size helps. So I think Colorado can be ok if they put resources into turning things around and start recruiting Texas again. I know so many Texans living in Colorado.