AR HS football is almost the opposite of MS HS football in my opinion. AR has a good number of teams that run very sophisticated schemes but with average athletes. MS runs simple stuff with great athletes. It is obvious to me that AR HS games don't have much speed on the field as MS games. However, I am not so sure having better athletes (which equals more SEC signees) means you have better HS football. For example, I think Springdale, AR beat Clarksdale this year. Also, West Memphis always has big and fast teams but usually falls short of winning State.
As for the reason AR doesn't have as many highly rated athletes as MS.....AR doesn't have as large of black population as MS. But with that said, I was curious about this as well (MS vs AR high school football) and found MS only produces, on average, two or three more 4 and 5 stars a year as AR. </p>