As SB Nation’s Matt Brown pointed out in his Extra Points newsletter, Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Nevada and Utah have actually seen their respective participation rates increase, but at a minuscule rate (Utah gained a total of nine players) compared to the states losing players. California, for instance, lost 12,435 players from 2014 to ’18, which is the equivalent of the entire state of Kansas dropping high school football.
The good news: Football is still the most popular sport in America for high school boys. A total of 14,247 high schools sponsored 11-man football in 2018, with 1,006,013 boys dotting those rosters, putting football well ahead of track and field (605,354), basketball (540,769) and baseball (482,740), according to a survey by the National Federation …