Best States For College Football Fans: Maryland Still More Known For Basketball

The Old Line State is renowned for many things, including its world-class seafood, seafronts, and sporting success in lacrosse and basketball.

One thing Maryland is not known for, however, is its college football, with two Football Bowl Subdivision programs (Maryland and Navy) experiencing varying levels of success on and off the field.

Both the Terrapins and Midshipmen have experienced run-ins with success in all of the major categories, such as winning percentage, attendance, and even recruiting.

They have failed to do so often enough to score highly in any of those categories, which, combined with no College Football Playoff appearances, dragged down the state’s ranking overall.

BetMaryland.com developed a ranking system of the best states to be a college football fan since the adoption of the College Football Playoff in 2014.

The first category measured attendance between 2014 and 2019 (the most recent year available), via NCAA.com, to determine a ranking for each of the 41 states with at least one FBS team, based on a 1-41 metric (1 being the lowest, 41 the highest).

We used that same scoring metric to measure recruiting, utilizing 247 Sports’ FBS rankings to assign points to each team.

We also ranked each state by winning percentage of its FBS teams since 2014 and by the number of FBS schools per state. We then gave bonus points to states based on College Football Playoff appearances and National Championships.

Here’s where the state ranked by those metrics, between 2014 and 2022.

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Best States for College Football Fans

Rank	State	Most Teams	Recruiting	Attend.	Win %	CFP Playoff	National Title	Total Points
1	🏈 Alabama	35	38	40	37	40	41	231
2	🏈 South Carolina	28	37	36	40	36	40	214
3	🏈 Ohio	40	31	37	23	41	39	211
4	🏈 Georgia	31	32	31	27	37	38	196
5	🏈 Louisiana	35	29	35	22	35	37	191
6	🏈 Michigan	35	36	39	28	38	0	176
7	🏈 Florida	38	40	38	26	32	0	174
8	🏈 Oklahoma	28	35	30	39	39	0	171
9	🏈 Indiana	31	30	28	14	34	0	137
T10	🏈 Texas	41	41	41	10	0	0	133
T10	🏈 California	38	39	32	24	0	0	133
12	🏈 Wisconsin	7	17	27	41	33	0	125
13	🏈 Pennsylvania	28	27	34	35	0	0	124
14	🏈 Washington	9	22	25	34	32	0	122
T15	🏈 Mississippi	28	34	24	26	0	0	112
T15	🏈 Virginia	35	19	22	26	0	0	112
17	🏈 Tennessee	31	26	33	21	0	0	111
18	🏈 North Carolina	38	28	21	20	0	0	107
19	🏈 Oregon	19	25	11	19	32	0	106
20	🏈 Utah	28	16	20	38	0	0	102
21	🏈 Kentucky	28	24	19	29	0	0	100
22	🏈 Iowa	19	14	26	30	0	0	89
23	🏈 Arkansas	19	20	23	15	0	0	77
T24	🏈 Colorado	28	11	17	16	0	0	72
T24	🏈 West Virginia	9	13	18	32	0	0	72
26	🏈 New York	28	6	16	17	0	0	67
27	🏈 Arizona	19	23	12	12	0	0	66
T28	🏈 Nebraska	7	21	29	8	0	0	65
T28	🏈 Idaho	19	5	8	33	0	0	65
30	🏈 Illinois	28	9	14	12	0	0	63
31	🏈 Maryland	19	18	13	9	0	0	59
32	🏈 Minnesota	7	12	6	32	0	0	57
33	🏈 Missouri	7	15	15	19	0	0	56
34	🏈 Kansas	19	7	12	5	0	0	43
35	🏈 Massachusetts	19	8	11	4	0	0	42
36	🏈 New Mexico	19	4	11	2	0	0	36
37	🏈 Nevada	19	2	7	6	0	0	34
38	🏈 Wyoming	7	1	6	13	0	0	36
39	🏈 New Jersey	7	10	6	3	0	0	26
40	🏈 Hawaii	7	3	6	7	0	0	23
41	🏈 Connecticut	7	1	2	1	0	0	12

States were ranked by each of the seven metrics above. The top state in each category received 41 points, down to 1 point for the last state. A state had to have a team make the CFP or win the national championship to be awarded points in those categories.

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Maryland Ranks Among Bottom of the Nation for CFB Fans

The combined lack of on-field success in Annapolis and College Park, teemed with the relative lack of recruiting success, ultimately doomed Maryland’s statewide ranking.

In total, Maryland’s two FBS programs combined to secure 59 points for the state, giving it the 31st spot out of 41 states with at least one top-level football team, sandwiched between Illinois (63 points) and Minnesota (57 points).

The state scored 18 points in our recruiting metric, coming in behind Virginia (19 points) and ahead of Wisconsin (17 points). Maryland’s statewide winning percentage of .462 was enough to get them nine points, while the average attendance at both programs notched 13 points in total.

Things could be looking up in Maryland, however, with the Terrapins sitting at 6-2 and on the verge of cracking the Associated Press top 25 in year four of the Mike Locksley era.

Maryland betting apps have the Terrapins at +25000 to win the Big Ten.

The Midshipmen have fallen on hard times. Navy has a total of nine victories since the start of the 2020 season, after winning 11 games in 2019 alone.