To my knowledge, the high schools affiliated with recruits bear no relationship to the real-life size of the high school or strength of the program.
Assuming that is correct, I think a pipeline school affect would be better than a pipeline state (so you don't have to deal with the California vs. Montana issue) and it would also be more realistic for a player to follow another player from his same neighborhood that he (likely) played with at some point, instead of just someone else from the same (general, to a degree) large geographic region.
EDIT - Countries, however, would work more like people are thinking about states, as the relative similarities (culture, language, etc.) are more common there (as compared to the U.S.) than for individual states.