BigJim
Hall of Fame
I always look to the NFL draft as the most unbiased way to see how "experts" evaluate top end college talent. It's not perfect for a number of reasons ("8th rounders" are big contributors i.e. Boone and are not measured here, good in college doesn't always translate to a high draft pick, character issues, etc.) but it's a pretty good estimation.
I wanted to see how conferences compared (the way they are currently made up) in getting their players drafted over the last ten years so I used the following formula: (Should I give more weight to higher rounds?)
1st round pick is worth 7 pts.
2nd round pick is worth 6 pts.
...
7th round pick is worth 1 pt.
Dividing total pts. by the number of years and the number of teams in the conference results in the following average annual "draft points" per team in each conference:
...........2000's........2006-2009...........# of Picks per year
SEC......13.3.............12.5..........................3.3............
ACC......12.8.............13.0..........................3.0...........
B10......12.7.............12.2..........................3.2............
P10......11.8.............12.0..........................3.0............
B12.......9.4...............9.2...........................2.4...........
BE.........6.5...............7.9..........................1.8............
MW.......4.1...............3.7...........................1.3............
WAC......3.3...............3.6...........................0.9...........
CUSA.....2.0...............2.6...........................0.9...........
MAC......1.8...............2.5...........................0.5............
Sun.......1.1...............1.0...........................0.3............
As you can see, the SEC just dominates these rankings (sarcasm). I don't want this to be a what conference is better discussion and I don't mean it to support that. But I think a lot of people in the media, and fans in general, would be really surprised at how close the conferences actually are when it comes to top end football players. I added a column for the last 4 years so that you could see it's not something that has changed a lot in recent years either.
I'll list the top teams using this point system probably tomorrow. Any guesses on the top 5 both for the 2000's and for 2006-2009?
I wanted to see how conferences compared (the way they are currently made up) in getting their players drafted over the last ten years so I used the following formula: (Should I give more weight to higher rounds?)
1st round pick is worth 7 pts.
2nd round pick is worth 6 pts.
...
7th round pick is worth 1 pt.
Dividing total pts. by the number of years and the number of teams in the conference results in the following average annual "draft points" per team in each conference:
...........2000's........2006-2009...........# of Picks per year
SEC......13.3.............12.5..........................3.3............
ACC......12.8.............13.0..........................3.0...........
B10......12.7.............12.2..........................3.2............
P10......11.8.............12.0..........................3.0............
B12.......9.4...............9.2...........................2.4...........
BE.........6.5...............7.9..........................1.8............
MW.......4.1...............3.7...........................1.3............
WAC......3.3...............3.6...........................0.9...........
CUSA.....2.0...............2.6...........................0.9...........
MAC......1.8...............2.5...........................0.5............
Sun.......1.1...............1.0...........................0.3............
As you can see, the SEC just dominates these rankings (sarcasm). I don't want this to be a what conference is better discussion and I don't mean it to support that. But I think a lot of people in the media, and fans in general, would be really surprised at how close the conferences actually are when it comes to top end football players. I added a column for the last 4 years so that you could see it's not something that has changed a lot in recent years either.
I'll list the top teams using this point system probably tomorrow. Any guesses on the top 5 both for the 2000's and for 2006-2009?