The first round of the NFL draft was extremely telling about the state of football. The NFL is a passing league and it was reflected in the fact that 22 of the 32 players picked were quarterbacks, cornerbacks, receivers and offensive tackles. There were three quarterbacks off the board in the first six picks, which wasn’t much a surprise given every team is in search of a franchise player at that position.
Here is the other thing we learned from the first round of the NFL draft: There is a reason the same handful of teams seem to dominate the NCAA football playoffs every year. Six schools — Clemson, LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia and Ohio State — produced 18 players of the 32 taken.
That shouldn’t be that much of a surprise until you realize there are 125 FBS schools. That means six schools provided 18 of the picks and the other 119 provided 14. You want to know why college football is increasingly becoming the haves and have nots? Well, this is a good place to start. The best programs recruit the best players and the more they win, the more they continue to lock up the best players.
Those six teams have accounted for 11 of the 12 spots in the national championship game over the last six years since college football adopted the four-team playoff. The only other school to make it to the championship game other than those six is Oregon, and the Ducks produced the No. 6 pick in the first round and have about six or seven other players that (according to rankings and mock drafts) are likely to get drafted.
Take that one step further — 19 of the 24 spots in the national playoff were taken by those six schools. And the other five weren’t exactly taken by Cinderella stories, as they went to Oregon, Florida State, Michigan State, Washington and Notre Dame.
And the four schools — LSU, Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State — that have won the national title in the college football playoff era accounted for 14 of the 32 first round picks.
This isn’t an accident and it isn’t likely to change any time soon. Just for the heck of it, I looked up the recruiting team rankings for the 2020 class on 24/7 sports. It goes like this: 1. Georgia, 2. Alabama, 3. Clemson, 4. LSU, 5. Ohio State. And Oklahoma and Oregon are No. 11 and No. 12, respectively. Rivals has the same five teams (in a little different order) at the top of their rankings, Oregon is No. 9 and Oklahoma is No. 15.
A lot of coaches on signing day like to downplay the idea of recruiting rankings and star rankings. I will paraphrase Ben Affleck’s character from the movie “Boiler Room” here when he talks about the idea of becoming rich.
“Anyone who says 5-star kids don’t win championships can’t ever (expletive) recruit them.”
The rich are always getting richer and, yes, the reason is because they are continually recruiting the best players. Sure it is an inexact science and there are always the stories of the 2-star kid who became a star and the 5-star kid who couldn’t play dead in a Western movie.
I get it, there will be hits and misses, and there are number of players who are evaluated wrong every year.
However, I can guarantee you this: If I recruit classes loaded with 4- and 5-star kids every year and you recruit classes loaded with 2- and 3-star kids every year, I love my chances of dominating the series between my team and yours.
There are a lot of excellent 3-star kids, but the best players in general are ranked as such. And those are the players this handful of football factories recruits every year. That’s why they aren’t likely to fall from their lofty places any time soon. These teams will continue to get the best players as long as they continue to win.
Florida State was with that group not that long ago, but made a disastrous coaching hire when Jimbo Fischer left for Texas A&M and has fallen to the bottom. But Florida State is a football factory brand name and with the right coach will be right back at the head of the class.
The NFL is where the best players go, and as we found out yet again Thursday night in the first round of the draft, there are a handful of schools that annually produce the best players. I don’t even know if there will be a football season next year, but if there is, my money is on four of those six top teams I named to make it to the playoffs.
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