You’re not going to believe this, but the best conference and the best team had the best players deemed ready for success at the professional level. Where did the 2021 NFL Draft picks come from? Let’s take a look at the weekend’s results conference by conference breakdown as well as the college teams that had the most success. We’ll start with the NFL Draft picks by conference.
NFL Draft picks by conference
They say it just means more, and every year that phrase seems more and more accurate. The SEC set a new record for the highest number of players drafted with 65, breaking its own record of 64 in 2019. The conference has had the most players picked in each of the last 15 years and with the way team recruiting rankings play out every season, this may never change. The biggest loser of the draft from a conference perspective has to be the Big 12, which did not have a single player drafted in the first 38 picks. The Pac-12 is the annual Power 5 punching bag, but Oklahoma masks the overall individual talent deficiency that exists in the Big 12, which had the fewest players selected among the big conferences.
The ACC took a massive jump from just 27 drafted players last season all the way up to 42 in 2021. From the Group of 5, the AAC secured 19 selections, which is the highest number it’s ever had.
Below is a look at the numbers by FBS conference. Because conferences do not have the same number of teams, we broke it down by draft picks per the number of schools in the conference.
SEC (65): 4.6
Big Ten (44): 3.1
ACC (42): 3
Independent (15): 2.5
Pac-12 (28): 2.3
Big 12 (22): 2.2
AAC (19): 1.7
Conference USA (5): 0.4
MAC (4): 0.3
Sun Belt (3): 0.3
Mountain West (3): 0.3
Draft Picks by School
The Alabama Crimson Tide got off to a hot start with six players selected in the first round alone, showing more evidence we may have seen the most talented recruiting class ever produced in the sport. So far, the class of 2017 produced 11 draft picks including eight in the first round. Those numbers are likely to look even more ridiculous at this time next year when more players from that class head to the draft. To put a bow on Alabama’s dominance, the team even had its long snapper drafted on Saturday. This talent advantage is only going to become greater as Nick Saban just signed the highest ranked class ever recorded in the 247Sports Composite era.
Alabama and the Ohio State Buckeyes tied for the most players drafted over the weekend with 10. Among the Power 5 schools to not have a single player selected through all seven rounds include Virginia, Kansas, Michigan State, Rutgers, Utah and Washington State.
Below is a breakdown of every FBS team that had a player drafted this weekend by number of selections.
Alabama, Ohio State: 10
Georgia, Notre Dame: 9
LSU: 7
Kentucky, Penn State, Pitt: 6
BYU, Clemson, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Stanford, Texas, UCF, USC: 5
Auburn, Cincinnati, Duke, Florida State, Iowa, Miami (FL), Oklahoma State, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Washington, Houston, Northwestern, Wisconsin: 3
Arizona, Boise State, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Louisville, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Nebraska, Ole Miss, Oregon State, Purdue, SMU, Syracuse, TCU, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Tulane, UCLA, Western Michigan: 2
Appalachian State, Arkansas, Arizona State, Baylor, Buffalo, California, Coastal Carolina, Colorado, East Carolina, Indiana, Iowa State, Kansas State, Louisiana, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Maryland, Memphis, Miami (OH), NC State, North Texas, San Diego State, South Alabama, Tulsa, UAB, UMass, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, West Virginia: 1
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