The ratio of football players to soccer players in the room was 5 to 7. If the football and soccer players in the room totaled 48, how many where football players?

There were 20 football players in the room. Because the ratio of football players to soccer players was 5 to 7, that meant that, should the ratio represent the actual number of football players in the room, there would be 12 football players in the room. However, the ratio has to be set equal to accomodate the 48 football players, therfore the 12 hypothetical players in the room would have to be multiplied by 4 to equalize. But that also means that everything else in the ratio will have to be multiplied by 4 to truly balance the ratio. Since there were 5 out of 12 football players, and there are actually 48 football players, and 12 times 4 equals 48, then 5 times 4 should give us our actual number of football players. Finally, some basic math will tell you that because 5 times 4 equals 20, and we can say that there are actually 20 football players in the room.

There are 20 football players