I just saw this thread and didn't read the whole thing, so apologies if I said anything that's already been said. But I feel like I have a bit of a unique perspective on this because I played and coached HS ball in South Florida and worked as a sports reporter in Southeast Texas. Tom Herman is right, Texas does have the most developed HS players in the country. The coaches get paid really well, the weight rooms are, at least in bigger areas, top notch. Schools get an athletic period during the day that can supplement practice. I know at the school I coached at in Dade, there was no athletic period. Everything we needed to do for football had to be done before school, after school, or in any possible free periods during the day.
That being said, I've heard from college coaches that they love Florida prospects because of how raw they tend to be. Now, that's an indictment on coaching, but you guys familiar with coaching in FL shouldn't be surprised. Pay is low, facilities can be bleh. Now that's obviously not every coach in Florida. But look at how many kids you see from FL who played one position in HS wind up going to college and play another position and flourish. They tend to just get thrown out on the field and let their God-given ability do the work. In Texas, the players are refined from early on. Also, the school districts go by city, not county in Texas. So a one-high school district can have one or two middle schools totally dedicated to running the HS system. So by the time they get to HS, they're refining instead of teaching brand new stuff.
So I agree with Herman, but I think Texas prospects tend to have lower ceilings than FL.