ACC’s NFL draft success continues to be unappreciated

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In 2006, the Atlantic Coast Conference produced seven of the first fifteen selections in the NFL Draft en route to setting the all-time record of first round draft choices from a single conference with twelve. Additionally, the ACC generated 25 of the 97 selections on the draft’s first day and had 51 total players selected in the draft — again the most of any conference in the history. (Crushing the previous record of 36 selections, also set by the ACC in April 2005, the spring after our first season with eleven teams) (Link to interesting entry from two years ago.

This year the ACC didn’t send as many players as recent years to the NFL, but the conference was able to continue its success amongst the best of the best by placing another two of the top three picks.

The Charlotte Observer highlighted the following interesting statistic:

With Virginia’s Chris Long (chosen second) and Boston College’s Matt Ryan (chosen third), the Atlantic Coast Conference is the first conference to have two of the top four picks in the NFL Draft for three straight years.

The others were:

2006 – NC State’s Mario Williams (first) and Virginia’s D’Brickashaw Ferguson (fourth)

2007 – Georgia Tech’s Calvin Johnson (second) and Clemson’s Gaines Adams (fourth)

The ACC gets a lot of criticism for supposedly playing football below the standards of most of the other top conferences, even when the conference is statistically rated as the toughest conference in the country by the Sagarin computer for two consecutive years.

Related #1: ACC ranked toughest conference again with ESPN’s subjective rankings.

Related #2: SFN link from April of 2007

Update: May 23, 2008: ACC lacking victories in BCS era

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35 Responses to ACC’s NFL draft success continues to be unappreciated

  1. Noah 04/29/2008 at 3:29 PM #

    The only day where you can really watch more than 2 games is New Years Day – and they’ve even watered that down some. (Still, for a college football fan, it’s about as close to Nirvana as you can get.) Several days have 2 games, but other than New Years eve I can’t think of any days where there is more than 1 game that would generate a lot of interest.

    I’m using this year’s bowl schedule.

    12/22 has three games.
    12/28 has three games.
    12/29 has three games.
    12/31 has six games.
    1/1 has six games.
    1/2 has two games.

    Starting on 12/20 and running through 1/7, The only dates that do not have at least one game: 12/24, 12/25, and 1/4.

  2. Noah 04/29/2008 at 3:33 PM #

    Actually, I think Sunday is likely off limits. I think you’d see games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I think the key would to be spread out a 16 game 1st round over several days to mimic the current bowl system.

    So you’d go from six days of three or more games to one? And that’s good for the networks, how? Plus, the first of January is dead in television. Everyone’s on holiday hiatus for another two weeks or so, the holiday’s are over so there aren’t any specials to run. Basketball in early January is still pretty poor and meaningless.

    There’s a huge hole in the sports schedule. Filling it with the diminishing returns of a football playoff schedule would mean having to fill that time with original content.

    Look…everybody thinks that the NBC deal with Notre Dame was a bad investment because Notre Dame only gave NBC a few years of being a national power. No…it costs NBC a few hundred thousand dollars to fill 3.5 hours of network time. That’s a great deal for them.

  3. b 04/29/2008 at 4:05 PM #

    I used to think that Norte Dame having their own network was a bad thing. But being able to watch their program implode on a weekly basis changed my mind.

  4. Ed89 04/30/2008 at 8:20 AM #

    ^^I think the key would to be spread out a 16 game 1st round over several days to mimic the current bowl system.

    It’s not going to a 32 team playoff — I don’t think anyone is even suggesting that. The most I’ve realistically heard debated is 8 (6 BCS champs and 2 wild cards) or 4 (which is basically the plus 1). The logistics of either 1 extra game or 3 extra games would NOT be that tough to overcome.

  5. choppack1 04/30/2008 at 9:46 AM #

    Ed89 – and that’s the ideas I’d expect from the talking heads. If you are going to do it, do it right. An 8 team playoff or 4 teams is worse than the current system. In case they haven’t noticed, the NCAA basketball, NFL and Major League baseball have increased their playoffs. But let’s just go w/ what folks “are talking about” and limit our ideas to a bunch of dolts on ESPN and FOX.

    Let’s face it – any playoff system basically submarines the college football system that has been in place for more than 50 years. An 8 team playoff or plus 1 won’t generate the interest or the ad revenues that a 32 team playoff would.

    Simply put, a 32 team college football playoff would be the biggest and most significant change in American sports since integration.

    Noah – one thing you’re leaving out of your equation: No one is saying that you still can’t have bowls. When you look at today’s bowl system – you have 64 teams. So, in theory, you could still have 16 games for those who are eligible for the post season today. I do think the interest in these games would be minimal – even more minimal than it is today, for both viewership and stadium attendances -for these bottom-tiered games.

  6. Noah 04/30/2008 at 9:48 AM #

    Like I said in my original comment…figure out a way to duplicate+$1.00 the current system and it will happen tomorrow. Until then, there’s really no point in talking about it.

  7. Ed89 04/30/2008 at 10:00 AM #

    ^^^Let’s face it – any playoff system basically submarines the college football system that has been in place for more than 50 years.

    I disagree…the current system favors the Big 10 and Pac 10 both of which have 2 or 3 good teams (OSU, Michigan, USC) and a bunch of bottom-feeders. A playoff system puts all conference winners on even ground. If you’ve got two great teams from one conference (LSU and UGa last year), or an undefeated Mid-Major (Boise State two years ago – not Hawaii this year), then they have a shot.

    An 8 team playoff or plus 1 won’t generate the interest or the ad revenues that a 32 team playoff would.

    A 32 team playoff does “submarine” the regular season, and while both would generate more interest, the 8 team playoff (or plus 1) is preferable to 32 teams, IMO. I guess we can agree to disagree. That’s probably why it will take a long time for anything to change, but I do think eventually we will have had enough of USC and Ohio State gettting to the final game every year only to lose to a team that clearly has more talent and has seen better competition (insert SEC team) throughout the year.

  8. choppack1 04/30/2008 at 2:32 PM #

    Noah – I imagine the selection show alone for the football playoffs would dwarf the advertising revenue for the bottom 1/3 of bowls.

    Ed – I’ll address your points later!

  9. b 04/30/2008 at 4:28 PM #

    Heard the BCS committee nixed a 4 team playoff scenario on the radio today. We’re setting up for a contingent plus one scenario when the BCS resets in 2010?

    By any standard, the BCS was an improvement over the prior system, but by the same standard it could be improved. If they just set up a possibility for an extra game scenario in the event of an undefeated #2 (or something similar in the point system), we’ll see a playoff sometime after that agreement plays out. The BCS proved a good weedout process last year when Georgia pulled up Hawaii’s skirt, Boise very likely deserved a shot at the title in their year, and Auburn and USC both could have proven their point. I expect there would be at least 3 times it was enacted in the following decade and those games would be the most profitable in recent memory. Attrition always wins.

  10. cowdog 04/30/2008 at 8:27 PM #

    WIN SOME BIG GAMES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

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