Odds and ends on where this year's NFL draft picks came from

• SEC dominated...25% of all draft picks came from this conference
  
• They continued a streak going back to 1947 of having at least one player taken in round 1.
• Their 63 players taken were eight more than any conference has sent, ever.
  
• Nine Alabama players were drafted overall, topped only by the 11 Florida State draftees.
  
• FSU's 11 players accounted for more than a third of the 32 total ACC draft picks. Half the ACC schools saw no players or 1 player taken. Aside from FSU, no other ACC school had as many as (shunned ACC candidate) UCONN's 5 selections. New ACC entrant Louisville had no players drafted. Syracuse had three, two to the Giants, one to the Steelers.
• The 32 ACC players taken were half as many as the Big Ten, but still good enough to be the second best in BSC conference showings.
• The SEC had one out of every three players taken in the top 100, meaning they had already had as many players taken by the end of round three than any other conference had through seven rounds.
• The Big Ten fizzled with only 22 picks. That tied them with the Big 12 for fourth place
• Michigan went without a draftee in the first four rounds for the first time since 1968
• Ohio State went 12-0 but had just three players drafted, none of them at skill positions. Johnathan Hankins in the 2nd, John Simon to the Ravens in the fourth, and Reid Fragel in the seventh.
• Incoming B1G school Rutgers sent seven selections to the NFL
• The B1G only had one player taken in the first round and should have had none if not for the scrambled brains of Jerry Jones, who took Wisconsin center Travis Frederick 31st.
• For the third consecutive year the Pac-12 had 28 players selected.
  
• Alabama saw three players taken consecutively in the first round -- Dee Milliner, Chance Warmack and D.J. Fluker.
• The last player taken in the draft -- Mr. Irrelevant -- came from an SEC school (Justice Cunningham USC). The first player taken came from a non-BSC school (Fisher, CMU)
• 40% of the Ravens selections came from non-BCS schools.
• Arkansas-Pine Bluff, California of Pennsylvania, Chadron State, Colorado State-Pueblo, Cornell, Elon, Florida A&M, Harding, Harvard, Jacksonville State, Missouri Southern State, Missouri Western, Northeastern State, Princeton, Southern Utah, Tennessee-Martin, Valdosta State, and William & Mary all had one player drafted, which was just as many as Auburn, Boise State, BYU, Michigan, and Oklahoma State.
• And the Ron Vanderlinden Award goes to.... Some bad college teams that still managed to send a good number of players to the NFL. UConn (5-7) sent 5. Cal (3-9) sent 4. Illinois (2-10) sent 4. Arkansas (4-8) sent 4. South Florida (3-9) sent 3. Colorado (1-11) sent 2. Sothern Miss (winnless) sent 1. One win teams, Kansas, UMass, New Mexico State, all sent one.

•The last player taken in the draft -- Mr. Irrelevant -- came from an SEC school (Justice Cunningham USC).
Took me a second to realize he was a Gamecock not a Trojan, but I also get confused when I see OSU and MSU more than USC


•40% of the Ravens selections came from non-BCS schools.
•Arkansas-Pine Bluff, California of Pennsylvania, Chadron State, Colorado State-Pueblo, Cornell, Elon, Florida A&M, Harding, Harvard, Jacksonville State, Missouri Southern State, Missouri Western, Northeastern State, Princeton, Southern Utah, Tennessee-Martin, Valdosta State, and William & Mary all had one player drafted, which was just as many as Auburn, Boise State, BYU, Michigan, and Oklahoma State.

Ravens got CS_Pueblo (Ryan Jensen), Missouri Southern (Brandon Williams), Aaron Melette (Elon). Kyle Juszczyk (Harvard) 4 of the 18
We can add in the UDFA Brandon Copeland (Penn), Trent Steelman (Army), Nathan Stanley (SE Louisiana), Ray Holley (La Tech), Bryndon Trawick (Troy), Chris Harris (Elon), Jose Cheeseborough (FIU), Gerrard Sheppard (Towson), Steve Demilio (Gardner-Webb), Gary Walker (Idaho), Jordan Devey (Memphis)

Looks like we are seeing a lot of work/effort by the scouts off the beaten track of most teams service

SEC football is just on another level. It's always been among the best but in the past decade it's been way ahead of every conference. I don't see that changing anytime soon. NFL coaches like what they get from SEC players because they are not that far off from pro players.

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Originally Posted by Rxdoxx

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Looks like we are seeing a lot of work/effort by the scouts off the beaten track of most teams service

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For the second year in a row Eric DeCosta pointed out that they have been challenging their scouts to beat the bushes out in the boondocks to find players. He says that in the last five years scouting has gotten better nationally and that it's been harder for them to identify talent that other teams could be overlooking.

But they believe they can outwork the scouting services (last I checked Ravens were one of only four teams that don't use a service) to find these hidden gems at more obscure programs.

I think it also dovetails with another philosophy that I have been claiming, at least, that I think they transitioned to about five years ago or so. I think they realized that they were missing on a lot of second and third rounders who possessed tape measure qualities that made them look like they should be first rounders. I'm talking about players like Patrick Johnson, David Pittman, Adam Terry, Yamon Figurs, Chris Chester, maybe even Kyle Boller.

I think they had fooled themselves into thinking these were players who had so much athletic ability or size, they could get them here, coach them up, and turn them into first round type players.

What they discovered, I think, is that this doesn't work -- these guys didn't have the production in college and they weren't going to have the production in the pros.

In fact, they learned that the opposite philosophy was much, much smarter. In these rounds they needed to target guys who looked terrible in gym shorts but who looked great on tape. They figured these were good football players who slipped because their combine measurables were concerning to other teams. Ray Lewis was kind of the first example of this in their draft history. But you can look at Ray Rice or Bernard Pierce or Lardarius Webb.

This is where the two philosophies intersect. Guys who weren't ideal athletes coming out of high school go to places like Rutgers, Temple, or Nicholls State (okay, Webby started at So. Miss).

If you go to these second and third tier schools you'll find guys who don't measure up, literally, at the combine but who love football and play smart and hard. That seems to be how they get so many value picks and also how they have come to define playing like a Raven. These guys also kind of have a chip on their shoulders, which adds to the flavor of being a Raven.

Yeah, I only really watch SEC football, and maybe some big ten. I stay away from PAC 12 at all costs, will sit down for a few ACC games now and again though.

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Originally Posted by Shas

I think they had fooled themselves into thinking these were players who had so much athletic ability or size, they could get them here, coach them up, and turn them into first round type players.

What they discovered, I think, is that this doesn't work -- these guys didn't have the production in college and they weren't going to have the production in the pros.

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Or, if they were able to "coach them up", they only got one productive year before the player signed a ridiculous contract elsewhere.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shas

For the second year in a row Eric DeCosta pointed out that they have been challenging their scouts to beat the bushes out in the boondocks to find players. He says that in the last five years scouting has gotten better nationally and that it's been harder for them to identify talent that other teams could be overlooking.

But they believe they can outwork the scouting services (last I checked Ravens were one of only four teams that don't use a service) to find these hidden gems at more obscure programs.

I think it also dovetails with another philosophy that I have been claiming, at least, that I think they transitioned to about five years ago or so. I think they realized that they were missing on a lot of second and third rounders who possessed tape measure qualities that made them look like they should be first rounders. I'm talking about players like Patrick Johnson, David Pittman, Adam Terry, Yamon Figurs, Chris Chester, maybe even Kyle Boller.

I think they had fooled themselves into thinking these were players who had so much athletic ability or size, they could get them here, coach them up, and turn them into first round type players.

What they discovered, I think, is that this doesn't work -- these guys didn't have the production in college and they weren't going to have the production in the pros.

In fact, they learned that the opposite philosophy was much, much smarter. In these rounds they needed to target guys who looked terrible in gym shorts but who looked great on tape. They figured these were good football players who slipped because their combine measurables were concerning to other teams. Ray Lewis was kind of the first example of this in their draft history. But you can look at Ray Rice or Bernard Pierce or Lardarius Webb.

This is where the two philosophies intersect. Guys who weren't ideal athletes coming out of high school go to places like Rutgers, Temple, or Nicholls State (okay, Webby started at So. Miss).

If you go to these second and third tier schools you'll find guys who don't measure up, literally, at the combine but who love football and play smart and hard. That seems to be how they get so many value picks and also how they have come to define playing like a Raven. These guys also kind of have a chip on their shoulders, which adds to the flavor of being a Raven.

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Right, I think that GM's (Ozzie included) would love to only draft BCS conference players who look great in gym shorts, had great highlight reels, and put up record setting stats, all while filling position and system needs, but they also realize that's feasible. Even when you're picking towards the top, you will have later round draft picks, it's just the nature of the draft. If you're starting at 32, not one of your draft picks is going to be the perfect, can't miss prospect. So, you have to improvise, and try to take advantage of the imperfect market, by valuing qualities that other teams undervalue. And taking advantage of the fact that you can outscout other teams and make sure that every draft pick counts.

If you only had 1st round picks on a team, than you would only have 6-8 players on the roster (assuming that some were re-signed).