The I-95 corridor from DC to Boston has several issues that aren't favorable to high school football. In the urban areas, basketball is king. The best high school football players end up at private schools, mostly Catholic. Lacrosse and soccer are more popular in the suburbs than football. When I lived in Marylnd, I lived in Baltimore, Catonsville and Carroll County. High school football wasn't that popular in Baltimore City. I worked ith a few guys who graduated from Baltimore Poly High School in the 1980's and 1990's and they told me that they had a difficult time keeping players on the team because of grades. Baltimore Polytechnic was one of the city's top high schools. Hardly anyone went out to watch high school football games. They were usually played on Friday afternoon or Saturday afternoon. The Catholic schools like Mt. St. Joe's and Loyola had decent teams but many of their top players came from outside of the city. Baltimore County had a few good football programs. Carroll County wasn't known for high school football. Northern Baltimore County, Carroll County, Howard County and Harford County focused more on soccer and lacrosse, cross country and baseball. Howard and Baltimore counties had some decent public high school football programs but not close to the talent of Hampton Road or Charlotte. That was my expereince living in that area for 27 years. I grew up in southern Virginia where football was the top sport in high school. I was surprised that my high school with 450 students drew over a thousand fans to Friday night football games while schools in Baltimore area with 1,500 too 2,000 students attracted a few hundred. A lot of that had to do with the fact that there's a lot more to do in the urban and suburban areas on Friday night and that their high school football teams usually weren't the pride or identity of their community. It's also not a big social event like it is in the rural communities or even in the South and Midwest. The Northeast is also more diversed ethnically and football isn't the preferred sport in some areas. I remember reading that Park View -Sterling , once a very good VHSL football program had trouble getting football players since soccer was more popular to first generation American immigrants. I think the Northeast's lack of interest in high school and college football is culturally. The NFL is about all they really need to satisfy their football fix. When I lived in Maryland, I was the only worker except for one WVU grad whoever talked about college football. It was all about the Redskins (at that time) and Ravens.