The best (and worst) college programs and conferences at developing recruits into NFL

• OneBuckeye

  

  http://www.blackheartgoldpants.com/2011/4/30/2143688/the-best-and-worst-college-programs-and-conferences-at-developing
  
  Best thing I have read in a long time. Read the whole thing it is more than worth it.
  

  Choosing OSU, USC or Iowa almost doubles a recruit's NFL chances
  We've calculated the fraction of each rank of recruits that are developed into draft picks by the average BCS program. That allows us to evaluate the player development of individual programs (or conferences) compared to this average. The Development Ratio is a simple way to measure the effect of a program on player development: take the number of recruits a program turned into draft picks and divide that by the number that an average BCS program would have produced from the same recruiting classes. For instance, let's say some college program brought in 20 4-star recruits, and 80 3-star recruits, and that 15 of them were drafted. The average BCS program, by the numbers above, would have had 10 of those recruits drafted. So our example program has a development ratio of 15/10 = 150%, very good!
  
  Back to the original question - we know USC produces more draft picks then Stanford, but is that just because of all those 5-stars they bring, or does USC have a better development program as well? If I am a recruit with NFL aspirations, which schools will best help me fulfill that dream? How much does it matter? The answers - for the best, the worst and a selected few in between:
  

  
  
• dat dude

  Great read. This should be in the back pocket of every OSU coach on the recruiting trail.
• Pick6

  

  seen something sort of like this on yahoo of all places a week or so ago. In the last ten years, Miami has something like 1 more first round draft pick than OSU in that time, but OSU has the most draft picks (I believe).
• Tobias Fünke

  

  I think this means a few things:
  
  1) Texas Tech and West Virginia have either run gimmicky offenses or the system has been spectacular, depending on your viewpoint. I normally pic the latter.
  
  2) This puts Notre Dame into the mediocre category. A few coaches who couldn't develop talent and/or coach very well. Just look what Willingham did to...
  
  3) Washington. Holy fuck. He drove that program right into the fucking ground just like Notre Dame. The only program that looks worse on that graph is...
  
  4) Illinois. Ron Zook gets talent, but blows dick at winning. He needs to go away.
• OneBuckeye

  

  Regarding WVU and Texas Tech, they run gimmicky offenses that produce wins in college but don't prepare the kid to get selected in the draft. They get wins with their talent but don't improve the talent. Where as Iowa gets crappy talent and gets wins and gets them ready for the NFL.
• goosebumps

  

  Cincinnati at number 7... not too shabby since they've only been BCS for 6 years.
  
  Also Big East players appear to be the best at getting offensive players into the NFL. This is likely due the the big number of stud RB's the Big East has produces as of late.
• Pick6

  

  goosebumps;758449 wrote:Cincinnati at number 7... not too shabby since they've only been BCS for 6 years.
  
  Also Big East players appear to be the best at getting offensive players into the NFL. This is likely due the the big number of stud RB's the Big East has produces as of late.

  
  excuse the ignorance, but who? I can think of Ray Rice.
• karen lotz

  

  Pick6;758580 wrote:excuse the ignorance, but who? I can think of Ray Rice.

  
  
  LeSean McCoy would be the next closest thing to "stud" from the Big East for RB's. After that maybe Donald Brown? I wouldn't say there are a high number of them either though lol.
• revgat

  They have had quite a few drafted, but I don't know about a lot of "studs". Steve Slaton maybe?
• j_crazy

  

  this is flawed because using the math he's using there is always going to be 2-3 teams in the SEC that have overinflated win expectations because they get the recruits, but since there are 6 teams that get the same recruits they and they all have to play each other, they'd either all be mediocre or you have outliers like LSU, Alabama, Florida, and Auburn (last year) that are amazing because of the coaching job and go undefeated (or 1 loss) so someone else ends up with more losses than they were expected to have.
  
  It'd be more representative to include the number of draft picks drafted in the first 2 or 3 rounds and leave the other rounds out.
  
  Either way, I get less enjoyment out of saying:
  
  "according to this guy on the internet, my school/conference develops players better for the NFL than your school/conference."
  
  than I would if I could say:
  
  "my team has 2 national titles in the last 10 years, or my conference has won 6 straight national titles"
  
  Just saying...
• Pick6

  

  revgat;759644 wrote:They have had quite a few drafted, but I don't know about a lot of "studs". Steve Slaton maybe?

  
  Steve Slaton is nowhere near a stud. He hardly touched the field last year. Now..a stud coming out of college, maybe. If we are talking about studs coming out of college, I can understand, because Big East teams have a tendency to have high powered offenses and not so good defenses.
• dokken

  Iowa needs to work their guys harder in the weightroom.
• dave

  Pick6;759777 wrote:Steve Slaton is nowhere near a stud. He hardly touched the field last year. Now..a stud coming out of college, maybe. If we are talking about studs coming out of college, I can understand, because Big East teams have a tendency to have high powered offenses and not so good defenses.

  
  they graph has nothing to do with how well players perform in the league so I'd assume he meant coming out of college. I think the Big East has produced more early drafted WRs than RBs though.
• bigkahuna

  I'm don't think I'm reading that graph right. It looks like WVU has more wins than OSU.
• revgat

  bigkahuna;759901 wrote:I'm don't think I'm reading that graph right. It looks like WVU has more wins than OSU.

  
  From the little bit that I read, I think they are basing that on how good the recruits were. Its saying all things equal (same quality of recruits) West Virginia would win more with their formula.