Shoulda, coulda stayed in school

April 27, 2019

Shoulda, coulda stayed in school … No question that underclassmen played a huge part in the 2019 draft. Indeed, 9 of the first 10 players selected this week, and over 20 of all opening round picks, were either juniors or redshirt sophomores.  However, it wasn’t all peaches and cream for those underclassmen that did enter the draft. In fact, of the 135 juniors or redshirt sophs who needed to apply for early entry to the draft, 47, or over one in three were not selected at all. And while many of this year’s underclassmen who entered the draft but weren’t selected really weren’t all that serious about the NFL, the list of undrafted underclassmen does include a number of players that clearly expected to be drafted including QB Tyree Jackson, WR L’ilJordan Humphrey, and ILB Tre Lamar. At the same time, one of the real stories of this year’s draft was the number of underclassmen who were selected much later than expected. The latter list includes players like CBs Greedy Williams and Byron Murphy, FS Deionte Thompson, OLB Jachai Polite, WRs AJ Brown, DK Metaclf, Kelvin Harmon and Riley Ridley, OTs Greg Little and Cody Ford, DT Dre’mont Jones, ILB Mack Wilson, and OT David Edwards, each of whom was considered to be pretty much a lock to be selected in the opening at the time they opted to enter the draft, but ultimately slipped deep into at least the second day.