Is SEC's reign as NFL draft's favorite conference over? Maybe | Goodbread
Every year since 2007, NFL clubs have leaned on the SEC for draft picks more heavily than any other conference in college football. That's 18 drafts, a run that the SEC eventually began recognizing with post-draft press releases, once it realized that one of its teams winning a national championship was the only thing that flexed the league's football muscle more impressively.
And it could be over.
GOODBREAD: Old Alabama football Mr. Irrelevant's advice to Jaylen Key: embrace the moment
NICK SABAN COMMEMORATIVE BOOK: Relive Nick Saban’s epic Alabama football coaching career with our special book! Preorder here.
Yes, the SEC led the way again this year with 59 selections, with the now-imploded Pac-12 finishing next with 43, and the Big Ten with 42. However, conference realignment is going to make this an entirely different race going forward. And a two-conference race, at that. Beginning this fall, the Big Ten will be an 18-team league after adding USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon on the field, and for the 2025 NFL draft, as well. Those four schools produced 27 draft picks last weekend; had they been in the Big Ten a year sooner, the league's draft pick total would've been a whopping 69.
The SEC is entering an expansion year itself, however, albeit with two teams rather than four. Texas and Oklahoma, after a messy three-year divorce from the Big 12, will make for a 16-team league and kick the SEC's draft impact into a higher gear, as well.
To complete the math exercise from this year's draft: the SEC, plus its two new schools, generated 73 picks, four more than the 69 the Big Ten plus its new four amassed. That's a pretty narrow margin, one that could easily flip from one year to the next.
That the Big Ten will have two more schools than the SEC might or might not be relevant to next year's NFL draft conference crowning. During the SEC's 18-year run leading the way, critics often have made that same argument when the SEC's 14 schools were two more than others. More years than not, it was a weak rationalization, because the margin by which the SEC ran away with the count was far greater than what a couple extra schools could explain. In the 2013 NFL draft, which followed the SEC's first season as a 14-team league, the ACC and Big Ten had 12 schools each. That year, the SEC's total of 63 picks was more than the ACC (31) and Big Ten (22) combined.
Two more schools? Please.
The Big Ten's had 14 schools for the last decade now, anyway. The NFL draft is the SEC's sandbox where bragging rights are concerned, and for the last 18 years, it's rarely even been challenged. With the onset of Big Ten expansion, however, the annual draft pick tally will finally have some intrigue. The ACC isn't in this hunt anymore. The Big 12 never was.
It's been the Power Two ever since the Pac-12 was vaporized.
And it'll be the Power Two come the 2025 NFL draft, as well.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Is SEC's reign as NFL draft's favorite conference over? Maybe
