Per capita 8 in Ohio (11.6 million population) and 5 in Michigan (9.9 million) is really not all that different than 4 in Alabama (4.8 million) or 2 in Arkansas and Kansas (2.9 million). New Mexico (2 million) has 2. Mississippi (2.9 million) has 3. Idaho (1.8 million) has 2.
This was really interesting to me, so I broke it down with number of FBS schools vs. population (2015 estimate from wikipedia).
Highest population / school
1. New Jersey - 9.0M (1 school)
2. New York - 6.6M (3 school)
3. Missouri - 6.1M (1 school)
4. Wisconsin - 5.8M (1 school)
5. California - 5.6M (7 schools)
6. Minnesota - 5.5M (1 school)
7. Illinois - 4.3M (1 school)
8. Pennsylvania - 4.3M (3 schools)
9. Connecticut - 3.6M (1 school)
10. Washington - 3.6M (2 schools)
Interesting that 5 of the top 10 are Big Ten states, and 10 of 11 Big Ten states were in the top half of states.
Lowest population / school
1. Wyoming - 0.6M (1 school)
2. Idaho - 0.8M (2 schools)
3. West Virginia - 0.9M (2 schools)
4. Louisiana - 0.9M (5 schools)
5. Mississippi - 1.0M (3 schools)
6. Utah - 1.0M (3 schools)
7. New Mexico - 1.0M (2 schools)
8. Alabama - 1.2M (4 schools)
9. Oklahoma - 1.3M (3 schools)
10. Hawaii - 1.4M (1 school)
Highest number of schools
12 - Texas (2.3M/school)
8 - Ohio (1.5M/school)
7 - California (5.6M/school)
7 - Florida (2.9M/school)
7 - North Carolina (1.4M/school)
5 - Michigan (2.0M/school)
5 - Louisiana (0.9M/school)
4 - Georgia (2.6M/school)
4 - Indiana (1.7M/school)
4 - Tennessee (1.7M/school)
4 - Alabama (1.2M/school)
Overall averages:
- 41 states with 128 FBS programs (3.1 schools per state)
- 312M people in those 41 states (2.4M per school, per state, on average)