J.K. Dobbins was a four-star prospect in the 2017 recruiting class. The running back from La Grange, Texas, was the fourth-ranked player at his position and 66th-ranked overall recruit (Rivals). And he was one of 63 players in the 2017 Rivals100 to sign with an out-of-state program, the most ever in the recruiting era.
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RECRUITING: Which States Produce Most Top Recruits?
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Dobbins passed on offers from TCU, Texas and other in-state programs to sign with Ohio State. The top running back — and top-overall prospect — Najee Harris did the same, passing on offers from California schools to sign with Alabama. Of the eight running backs in the Rivals100, only two — Ty Chandler (Tennessee) and Brian Robinson (Alabama) — opted for in-state schools.
Sixty players in the first Rivals100 in 2002 stayed home. Sixty-one did the same in both 2003 and 2004. From 2002-10, only once did fewer than 52 players sign with in-state schools (45 in 2005). Not once since 2010 have more than 50 stayed home, and in those eight years (2011-18), an average of 45 recruits signed with in-state schools. An average of nearly 56 stayed home in the nine years prior.
A most recent snapshot shows an even more dramatic trend. An average of 41 players have stayed home over the last three years, and though Dobbins' 2017 class is the outlier over that period, the other two years saw just 43 (2016) and 44 (2018) players stay home.
Social media and nationally televised games headline the widely speculated reasons why top prospects are leaving their home states at a rapid pace. YouTube wasn't launched until 2005, a year before both Hudl and Twitter were founded. Every Power Five game was not nationally televised 16 years ago, and it wasn't until 2007 that Americans sent and received more text messages than phone calls
Here's a look at the trends for Rivals100 recruits signing with in-state vs. out-of-state programs from 2002-18. The data excludes recruits from states without FBS schools, with the exception of Washington, D.C., which was included and treated as a Maryland city for this exercise. Recruit location is the city in which their high school resides.
