My opinion of him has been lowered. He's a heck of coach, no doubt. And I'm sure he was making a joke here, but it was an insulting joke and a disingenuous one at that. He recruits heavily down in the South, and nearly 1/4 of his roster is made up of players from Texas, Florida, and Georgia if I'm not mistaken.
It's probably going to backfire on him in recruiting.
Also, Greg McElroy pointed this out on Twitter. Supposedly we're so stupid here in the South, yet we basically are NASA. Texas, Alabama, and Florida are home to who knows what percentage of rocket scientists in this country. Oh but California has Google and Facebook.