Here’s one more reason to call Ohio a football state. A new study ranks the Buckeye State fifth in the country for producing active NFL players, with 74 players born in Ohio.
ACE.com looked at active players from the completed 2025 NFL season and where they were born.
California took the top spot with 194 active NFL players, followed by Texas with 185, Florida with 174 and Georgia with 142.
Then comes Ohio.
The Buckeye State’s 74 NFL players put it just ahead of Louisiana, which has 73.
And because no Ohio football story is complete without a little Michigan comparison: Ohio has produced 18 more active NFL players than our neighbors to the north. Michigan ranked 10th with 56.
The study also compared NFL players with the number of boys participating in high school football in each state. By that measurement, Ohio ranked 15th nationally, while Georgia took the top spot.
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