The Inferno: NCAA Conferences and the NFL
With the draft upon us, there has been a lot of discussion recently about who will go where, who is overrated or underrated this year, and which team is going to find that diamond in the rough. All this NFL talk got me thinking about which college conferences and college teams have the most players currently suiting up in the NFL. After all, drafting players is all fine and dandy, but if they can’t make it onto an actual team, then who really cares that they were drafted in the first place? So you may be asking, why in the world do I think about stuff like this? I have no earthly idea, but somehow it always seems to pop in my head. So I decided to do a little research (on company time, of course!) to figure out just which conferences and teams reign supreme when it comes to current NFL talent. (Editor’s note: I only looked at the big 6 conferences because to be frank I don’t give a crap about the other guys.) The results were both surprising and not so surprising – let me explain.
In theory, the best conferences should also produce the most NFL talent. Sounds too simple to be true, but that’s what I would have believed heading into this analysis. In terms of conference power, I think most unbiased college football fans would say that the SEC has been the best conference year-in and year-out for the past few years. The honorable mention award for best conference seems to be a battle between the Big 12 and Big Ten, with some west coast homers throwing the Pac-10 into the mix. The ACC and the Big East are probably a notch below these other conferences, although I guess an argument can be made that the ACC is extremely balanced and therefore should get a little more love. But a big, fat ugly chick can have good balance as well, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to win a beauty contest! So if you ask me, which you didn’t but I am going to enlighten you anyway, I would put my order of conference superiority as #1 SEC, #2A Big 12, #2B Big Ten, #4 Pac-10, #5 ACC, and finally the lowly #6 Big East. So how do the numbers play out? Do they go along with my theory? Well, sort of….here are the average number of current NFL players from each team from the big 6 conferences:
1. SEC – 26.6 players
2. Big Ten – 24.4 players
3. ACC – 24.3 players
4. Pac 10 – 22.8 players
5. Big 12 – 19.4 players
6. Big East – 16.8 players
In looking at these numbers, the two things that surprise me the most is just how high the ACC is and just how low the Big 12 is. The ACC is right there in terms of being the second best conference in producing NFL talent. Once again, the ACC is very consistent in their results. Take out the very high outlier (Miami) and the very low outlier (Duke) and the other 10 teams are all fairly close. In fact, 7 of these 10 teams have between 22 and 29 players currently in the NFL. The Big 12 on the other hand is much lower than I thought they would be. While the perennial powerhouses like Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska still produce, each with at least 32 players in the NFL, the bottom half of the conference is downright disgusting. The SEC and Pac-10 have no teams with less than 10 players currently in the NFL. The ACC, Big 10 and Big East each only have 1 team with 10 or fewer players. The Big 12 has 3 in Baylor, Iowa State and Kansas. So just like the conference shows on the actual playing field, when it comes to NFL talent, the Big 12 is extremely top-weighted.
In looking at individual teams, what stood out to me most was first and foremost the top overall team. Let me give you a few seconds to think about who the #1 team might be. ONE MISSISSPPI. TWO MISSISSIPPI. THREE MISSISSIPPI. Ok, who did you pick? If you would have asked me this 30 minutes ago I probably would have said USC or Miami or Texas or maybe even Ohio State. And if I wasn’t a Gator fan who knows too much about the team and our fairly lackluster history in producing NFL talent, I may have thrown Florida into the mix. But the #1 team actual is…drum roll please…LSU with 48 players currently in the NFL. Now when you really think about it, that’s probably not that surprising as LSU has had a heck of a run these past 5-8 years under Nick Saban and Les Miles, but still they weren’t one of the first teams that came to mind, at least for me. Here is the top 10 in case you were wondering:
1. LSU – 48 players
2. Miami – 47 players
3. USC – 44 players
4. Texas – 42 players
5. Georgia – 39 players
6. Michigan – 38 players
7. Ohio State – 38 players
8. Tennessee – 38 players
9. Florida – 36 players
10. Nebraska – 35 players
Looking a little further into the team-by-team analysis, the teams that pleasantly surprised me the most were LSU, Nebraska and Louisville. I thought LSU would be in the top 5, but not #1 overall. Way to geaux! Nebraska hasn’t been good for quite some time now and the guys who were playing there when they were good are pretty much all out of the NFL, so the amount of players they have in the NFL and the fact that they are in the top 10 was quite surprising to me. And finally, who would have said that Louisville has the most players in the NFL of any Big East school at 28? Not me. But it’s the truth.
As for those teams that were on the wrong end of the Mendoza line? First and foremost, USF! I know USF is a new school and I know it takes a while to develop NFL type talent, but I never expected USF to be as bad as they are. Out of the 65 teams in the big 6 conferences, USF is 61st in number of NFL players with only 9 players on current NFL rosters. This ties them with the likes of Indiana and Baylor and only puts them ahead of Kansas, Iowa State and Duke (who happens to be the lowest with only 4 players in the NFL). Now USF may be new to the game, but they are a MUCH better team in my opinion, and have been for the past several years, than each and every one of those teams. Come on USF, step your game up! Other disappoints were Clemson with 16 and Wisconsin with 21. Clemson shouldn’t surprise me really given that this is their M-O. Build you up to think that they are good and then disappoint you when pen meets paper or cleats meet turf. As with Wisconsin, I guess I just figured that their history and way of playing the game (run-oriented team with big O-lineman and D-lineman) would have resulted in them being in the top half of the results. Guess I was wrong again.
Oh and by the way, just in case you care, Notre Dame has 27 players in the NFL which would put them at #19 on the list. Oh and by the way, Notre Dame still sucks!