Football West of the Rockies

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Seems like we have a new generation of West Coast fans who don’t understand the geography of Division III. I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails like this in the past 48 hours.

seems like your “Top 25” seems to be “East” and midwest heavy. Their is
football west of the Rockies!

Indeed, there is.

There are nine Division III football teams in California.
There are three Division III football teams in Oregon.
There are three Division III football teams in Washington.

That’s it: 15 out of 239, 6.2%. Add in Colorado College if you like to get to 16.

I’d note that 8% of our Top 25 teams are West of the Rockies.

For a more visual representation of Division III football, see below. You’ll have to zoom out to see the entire country, as our space here is limited.


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9 thoughts on “Football West of the Rockies”

  2. This is something that’s needed explaining for as long as we’ve done this site. We’ve tried, and we’ve certainly kept D3’s outposts in proportion in our coverage.

    That said, there’s perhaps no way to drive the point home better than the map. D3 is more or less an East Coast/Midwest animal. How else to describe a South Region that begins in Pennsylvania and a West that starts in Wisconsin?

  3. I should point out that East Region teams are in green, West Region teams are in yellow, North Region teams are in blue and South Region teams are in red.

  6. Maybe you need to add “regional representation %” to each Top 25 😉

    At least CoCo can fly everywhere they need to go, as opposed to Sul Ross that gets on buses and drives forever to get to their opponents. But yep, like most SCAC members they have a healthy travel budget … comes with the territory of being part of the most geographically widespread conference in D3.

  7. Nice use of the map to get your message across, Pat. That’s quite a disparity in team locations across the country.

  8. I believe that two factors play into these regional disparities.

    First, many colleges in the west, from Division I to III do not offer football as a sport. Look at all of the Division I schools in California have dropped the sport in the past 25 years.

    Second, the NAIA seems to be a lot stronger in the Deep South as many universities prefer fewer regulations on their sports programs.

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