Does surrounding culture impact winning in college football?
Looking at the different cultures across America and the college football programs who represent them.
Today we’re continuing our series on Colin Woodard’s “American Nations” theory and some of the implications for college football.
In part i, I introduced his theory, in part ii I talked about the dominance of the Deep South and Greater Appalachia. Today we’re going to discuss some of the other regions who may or may not have successful programs.
I’ll start by bringing back a couple of handy images to reference. First, my own superimposition of some of college football’s major programs on top of Woodard’s map:
Next, a table of population totals he added up from the 2020 census combined with the number of National Championships won by each region since 1950.
I’ve made one big adjustment though, I erred in the first post by including Notre Dame in “the Midlands” when they actually belong in “Yankeedom.” This was a pretty sizable mistake by yours truly, here was the original table:
Here’s the amended one which includes Notre Dame success properly tabulated for Yankeedom rather than the Midlands:
For whatever reason, in my mind South Bend was a touch deeper into Indiana and off the coast of Lake Michigan than it is in reality. I’ve driven there before, but my memory proved poor. Anyways, Yankeedom isn’t quite as weak as it looked initially but it still ain’t that strong. Why is that?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to America's War Game to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.