Southern Speed - What are they really talking about?

I'm going to write something you will never see on a major website because it is a taboo.

Every year during college football there is a term that is repeated ad naseum -- SOUTHERN SPEED. If you played a drinking game while you were watching College Gameday and did a shot every time they mentioned SOUTHERN SPEED you'd never be able to get off the couch by the end of the broadcast. Goto any Buckeye forum and there's no way to get a Buckeye fan's blood pressure to rise faster than to hear the word SOUTHERN SPEED.



So what is this mysterious factor called Southern Speed? From a purely literal meaning this would mean that Southern players are faster than players from other areas in the country. Does this really make sense? Is a person all of a sudden faster because they live in Florida instead of Illinois? Of course not. So what does it really mean? The answer is that Southern Speed is a euphemism for African American athletes.

This is a very touchy subject in the United States due to our history (For what it is worth I am Caucasian with a trace of Native American). That doesn't change the fact that African Americans in the United States are just better athletes than athletes of other races. If you dispute this just look at the NFL (70% African-American) or the NBA (80% African-American). I don't pretend to know why this is like that and frankly don't want to ... it just is.

The biggest advantage the Big 10 has over its rival conferences is its huge population base in the states in which it plays. This has historically given it a huge advantage in terms of TV contracts and bowl bids due to the sheer number of fans. When I had the thought "Southern Speed = African Americans" my next thought was ... "The Big 10 has a population advantage in terms of total population but what about African-American population?" So I looked up the population by and put together the following list (millions of African-Americans separated by a state's main conference affiliation with % of total population in parenthesis):

Big Ten
1.9 - Illinois (14.6%)
1.4 - Michigan (13.8%)
1.3 - Ohio (11.4%)
1.2 - Pennsylvania (9.7%)
0.5 - Indiana (8.3%)
0.3 - Wisconsin (5.41%)
0.2 - Minnesota (3.8%)
0.1 - Iowa (2.0%)
6.8 - Total Big 10 (10.8%)

SEC
2.6 - Florida (14.4%)
2.5 - Georgia (27.2%)
1.4 - Louisiana (31.6%)
1.2 - Alabama (25.4%)
1.0 - Mississippi (35.6%)
0.9 - Tennessee (15.9%)
0.4 - Arkansas (15.1%)
10.0 - Total SEC (21.1%)

ACC
1.8 - North Carolina (20.4%)
1.5 - Maryland (26.7%)
1.4 - Virginia (18.3%)
1.2 - South Carolina (28.2%)
0.3 - Kentucky (7.2%)
6.2 - Total ACC (20.3%)

Big 12
2.5 - Texas (10.7%)
0.6 - Missouri (11%)
0.2 - Oklahoma (6.9%)
0.1 - Kansas (5.4%)
0.1 - Nebraska (4.0%)
0.2 - Colorado (3.5%)
3.7 - Total Big 12 (9.0%)

Pac 10
2.2 - California (6.1%)
0.2 - Washington (3.2%)
0.2 - Arizona (3.1%)
0.1 - Oregon (1.6%)
2.7 - Total Pac 10 (5.1%)

Nothing on this chart surprises me too much. Florida, Texas, and California have the highest African-American populations and are considered the best recruiting locations in the country. Also note that the African-American % of population in the SEC and the ACC is twice the % of the Big Ten. The one thing that did surprise me was that New York (2.9)and New Jersey (1.2) had high populations but neither are considered football recruiting hotbeds.

I do feel the need to say that there are many good non-African-American football players and Division I-A football is approximately 50% African-American. But when Lee Corso says on College Gameday that "The Buckeyes need to get more Southern Speed", he is really saying the Buckeyes need more athletes and the word athlete means African-Americans. Of course he can't say the word African-Americans so we are stuck with the word Southern Speed. But know at least I know what he really means.