As the state continues to garner respect and attention nationally as a fertile football ground, Utah was recognized for its ability to churn out Division I recruits in a study with data taken from 2008 to 2013 published by SBNation.com on Wednesday morning.
Naturally, the country's "Big Three" of Texas, California and Florida lead the nation in producing Division I football players mainly due to sheer population in those states but the Beehive State was ranked as the No. 11 state in the country in terms of Division I recruits per capita.
In fact, Utah sits above states such as California, New York, South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia and the rest of the lot as a state that, per capita, produces 0.90 Division I recruits per 100,000 of its population.
That's 1.21 times the national average.
The top 10 per capita states are (in order): Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, District of Columbia, Mississippi, Texas, Ohio and Oklahoma.
"Utah is absolutely must-recruit territory," ESPN's West recruiting coordinator Erik McKinney told The Tribune in January. "You have to know who is in Utah at this point."
-Chris Kamrani
Twitter: @chriskamrani