SEC leads conference again; AAC and MVFC surprise

May 1, 2022

SEC leads conference again; AAC and MVFC surprise … Just to follow-up the earlier breakdown of picks by school, the SEC once again had the most players of any conference selected at the 2022 draft. Led by Georgia’s record 15 picks, the SEC had 65 players taken at this weekend’s draft which tied last year’s record haul. In fact, it was the 16th straight year in which the SEC had the most players selected of any conference. The Big Ten was the only other even remotely close to the SEC this year with 48 picks – up four from last year – led by Penn State with 8 and Ohio State with 7. At the same time, the PAC-12 and Big XII tied for third with 25 picks each, while the ACC had 21. In fact, that number represents something of a shocking decline for the ACC which 42 players selected last year.  And thanks in large part to the decline in ACC picks, the share of all picks going to Power 5 schools (plus Notre Dame) dropped from 78% last year to 71% this year, although in fact that number is more in keeping with those pre-covid when around 70% of all players drafted were from Power 5 schools.

Folks in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) have been complaining for several years now that they really should be included in the power conferences. Of course, they got some justification when Cincinnati became the first non-Power 5 team to play in the 4-team CFP playoff last fall and they got a little more this weekend when 19 players – including 9 former Bearcats – were selected at this weekend’s draft. That’s just a couple less than the ACC and pretty close to the PAC-12 and Big XII totals. The problem for the AAC, though, is that Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida are going to be moving over to the Big XII sooner rather than later and will be taking their 13 picks this year with them, while the teams that the AAC will be adding had only three players selected. Ironically, at least based on this year’s totals, the Big XII would actually have gained when they swap out Oklahoma and Texas, who will be joining the SEC, for the AAC schools as the Sooners and Longhorns only had a7 players taken this year – with none from Texas – versus the 13 from Cincinnati, Houston and UCF.

At the same time, the Mountain West had 11 players taken led by San Diego State’s 4, while the MAC, CUSA and Sun Belt conferences each 6 players selected. The total of 29 players selected from those 4 leagues, though, was pretty close to double the number from last year’s draft. The number of players selected from either FCS or lower level programs was also double their figure in 2021. Indeed, a total of 23 players were selected from lower level conferences this weekend, up from just 10 last year. In fact, the number of players selected from lower level schools this year is somewhat high by historical standards as the figure has seldom been over 20 in the modern era. And the teams leading the way for the lower level schools were from the Missouri Valley Football Conference, which includes the 4 Dakota programs, Northern Iowa and Youngstown State among others, which had 6 players selected this year, the same as the likes of the MAC, Sun and CUSA, along with the Big Sky Conference which had three players including two from Montana State.