Michigan gets the most top players from each state; Ole Miss best in SEC

Now that National Signing Day has passed, there are plenty of numbers to crunch – and we’ll probably crunch them all. What’s interesting is to see who gets out and about the most past their state borders to grab the best kids.

Using the 247sports.com composite rankings, we looked state-by-state for the highest ranked player in each state and charted where they wound up signing. (Note: Six states didn’t have a top 1,000 player, so there were only 45 listings, including Washington, D.C.)

And the big winner? Well, that would be the guy who pulled out just about all the stops during this recruiting season, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh.

He signed the top player from five different states – New Jersey (No. 1 Rashan Gary DT), Wisconsin (No. 39 Ben Bredeson OL), Indiana (No. 61 Brandon Peters QB), Michigan (No. 88 Michael Onweno OK), and Colorado (No. 304 Carlo Kemp DE).

Penn State was second, signing the four top players from Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania. Only two other schools had three – Ole Miss and Clemson. Alabama, Nebraska and Oregon had two each. No one else had more than one.

Ohio State had the highest-ranked class (No. 4) that didn’t include a single top-ranked player. USC (No. 9) didn’t either. No 11 Texas and No. 13 Florida were shut out as well.

Here’s the top player from each state, with their national ranking and the school they signed with.

Editor’s note: We used the 247Sports Composite rankings to determine the best player from each state. The site ranks 1,000 players.

BEST PLAYERS BY STATE, 2016 RECRUITING CLASS

Tom Brew

Tom Brew is an award-winning journalist and author who is covering SEC football for Saturday Down South.