It’s a young man’s game … Every year, there is something of a debate around football whether so many underclassmen should enter the draft with eligibility remaining. By and large, though, the numbers don’t really support the argument. This year, for example, 7 of the first ten players selected, and 23 of the 32 first round picks were either juniors or redshirt sophomores. And while roughly one out of four underclassmen who did enter the draft were not selected at all, none of the those undrafted players were really expected to be drafted anyway. However, what might give some underclassmen pause in the future is that a number of juniors did not go quite as early as they had hoped and might have been better staying in school, although hindsight makes geniuses of us all. Most notably, QBs Jacob Eason of Washington’s Jake Fromm, both of whom were considered to have at least some late first round potential, slid all the way into the third day where Eason was selected in the 4th round by Indianapolis, while Fromm fell all the way to the 5th before being selected by Buffalo. Star SEC safeties Xavier McKinney of Alabama and LSU’s Grant Delpit, also had to be a little disappointed about dropping out of the opening round, while Iowa DE A.J. Epenesa went for a major slide, dropping from a possible top ten prospect early in the process to the latter part of the second round. Other underclassmen to have gone somewhat later than expected included LSU C Lloyd Cushenberry, Houston OT Josh Jones and Notre Dame ER Julian Okwara, each of whom ended up being selected late in the second day.
