Credit: Mary Altaffer/Associated Press
The schools in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) have failed to bring home a national football title for two years running following the conference’s unprecedented seven-year run between 2007-13. But the SEC’s notoriously prideful fans can still claim bragging rights in at least one way on the gridiron.
As the below PointAfter graphic shows, the SEC had a nation-high 54 players selected from its 14 schools during last month’s NFL Draft. That’s the second most in SEC history, behind only the 63 players selected in 2013.
That means that out of the 256 players drafted this year, 21 percent came from SEC schools — nearly one in five draftees.
This trend is nothing new. In fact, it was the ninth straight year the SEC has led all conferences in draftees. Unsurprisingly, that’s given them a huge advantage in total draft picks over the last decade.
These facts suggest that no matter which way you slice it, the SEC possesses the most NFL talent of any college conference. But that’s not exactly the case – if anything, NFL coaches just think SEC-bred players can transition to the NFL easier.
Over the last decade, the SEC has produced 86 first-round picks, the most of any Power Five conference and 26 more than the second-place Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). It’s not just a case of raw numbers, either.
More than 19 percent of the SEC’s overall selections have come in the first round, more than any Power Five conference and second only to the American Athletic Conference (AAC), which has only been in existence for two years yet produced six first-round selections out of 23 overall picks.
But how often do those high draft pedigrees translate to on-field production?
Now, the SEC has somewhat lived up to its reputation by churning out more Pro Bowlers (46) than any other conference since 2006. But we also need to take into account that the SEC has had far more players drafted in the first place. So they should have more Pro Bowlers.
What they don’t have is a higher percentage of Pro Bowlers. Those 46 Pro Bowlers from the SEC were a product of 446 draft picks since 2006. So about 11.7 percent of SEC players who move onto the NFL become Pro Bowlers.
Two other Big Five conferences — the Pac-12 (11.96 percent) and Big 12 (11.62 percent) — produce Pro Bowlers with about the same success rate, and the C-USA (12.99 percent) surprisingly blows every other conference out of the water. Meanwhile, the ACC and Big Ten come out looking quite weak in comparison.
Despite this, NFL front offices have leaned heavily toward drafting SEC prospects early in the draft even more in recent years.
Between 2006-10, the SEC generated 36 first-round picks, narrowly beating out the 34 first-rounders out of the ACC. The Big Ten (25) and Big 12 (24) weren’t too far behind, either.
However, there has been a significant change favoring the SEC since that time. From 2011 to 2015, an impressive 50 first-round picks came from the SEC, almost twice as many as the second-place ACC (26). While the Pac-12 has climbed to third place, both the Big Ten and Big 12 have experienced sharp declines.
Of course, some of that has to be attributed to the SEC plucking Texas A&M and Missouri from the Big 12, while the Pac-12 added Utah and Colorado.
But NFL GMs obviously hold a clear preference for SEC players, despite the fact that the conference doesn’t spawn more stars on a per-capita basis. The SEC, and its players, have unquestionably benefitted from the prestige that comes with winning seven straight BCS title games.
This isn’t to say that the SEC doesn’t have immensely talented players. Even on the per-capita Pro Bowl basis, it ranks third among all FBS conferences.
But these findings do make you wonder if players from the Pac-12 and Big 12 are undervalued throughout the NFL scouting process.