Did You Know? 2023 SimNFL Draft Edition by the Numbers

[Jieret]

Did you know?

 

Schools

• The B1G took home the imaginary trophy for most players drafted with 33.  The Big XII came in second with 30, and the SEC third with 24.
• The Sun Belt had the least number of players drafted with 13 (No, we're not counting Independents as an actual conference here).  The full list:

 

 

Conference	Draftees	Draftees/Sch.
AAC	23	1.64
ACC	21	1.5
Big 12	30	2.14
Big Ten	33	2.06
C-USA	19	1.9
Independents	3	0.75
MAC	21	1.75
MWC	18	1.5
Pac-12	19	1.9
SEC	24	1.71
Sun Belt	13	1.3

(Note: This follows the sim, which has already accounted for future conference realignment EXCEPT for Oklahoma & Texas moving to the SEC.  Those schools had six players drafted, if you put them in the SEC it gives the conference of PAWWWWWWWL 30 draftees and 1.88 draftees per school, and the Big Twelve 24 draftees and 2.00 draftees per school.)

• Illinois (B1G) and Colorado State (MWC) led the way with five players from their schools drafted.  The Rams also account for the highest percentage of any conference's draftees, putting 27.78% of the Mountain West draft class into the NFL.  By conference, schools with the most draftees:

 

 

Conference	School(s)	# of draftees
AAC	Charlotte, Temple, SMU, USF	3
ACC	Pitt	4
Big 12	Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., TCU	4
Big Ten	Illinois	5
C-USA	Old Dominion, Liberty, USM, WKU	3
Independents	Notre Dame	2
MAC	Akron	3
MWC	Colorado State	5
Pac-12	Cal	4
SEC	Tennessee	4
Sun Belt	App. State, ULL, South Alabama, Texas State	2

 

• The school with the lowest number of drafted players compared to their draft-eligible class?  Tulsa, with only one player drafted (OT Christian Brown, 7th round to Tampa) out of 18.
  • Tied for 2nd?  Kentucky and Wake Forest, with also one draftee each out of 15.  But if it's any consolation to those schools, those players are pretty damn good (Third overall pick OT Rubby Stewart to the Niners for Kentucky, former Demon Deacon and future Hall of Famer WR Wandy Realmuto to the Raiders).
  • Obviously I'm not counting schools with zero draftees in the above.
• You want zeroes?  Fine.  17 schools had no players selected.   They are: Arizona (11 eligible), Army (9), Auburn (10), Cincinnati (10), The Citadel (1), Connecticut (11), Duke (12), Georgia State (8), Grambling (1), Nebraska (12), North Carolina (12), Rice (10), San Diego State (10), Toledo (10), UAB (11), UTEP (9), UTSA (11)

 

 

 

Players

 

 

You already knew this, but this DT class is probably one for the ages.  I mean, just look at this chart showing the draftees by position:

Position	Draftees	Eligible	% Drafted
QB	14	101	13.86%
RB	16	115	13.91%
FB	4	33	12.12%
WR	31	177	17.51%
TE	7	52	13.46%
OT	20	154	12.99%
OG	12	94	12.77%
C	10	48	20.83%
DE	13	130	10.00%
DT	24	114	21.05%
ILB	15	75	20.00%
OLB	12	91	13.19%
CB	25	154	16.23%
FS	11	59	18.64%
SS	5	46	10.87%
K	4	50	8.00%
P	1	7	14.00%

 

 

Sure, the cornerbacks had more players drafted.  And yes, a similar proportion of centers were drafted.  But the defensive tackles showed out in sheer numbers AND percentage.  Just a silly bumper crop. 

Fun facts by the numbers:

• 49: Number of draft spots between when the first player of this position was taken and the second.  Can you guess what position without looking at the draft book?  Bonus no-points if you know who the second player is.
• 7: Positions that were not drafted in the first round (RB, FB, OG, DE, SS, K, P)
• 6: Number of DTs and WRs each taken in the first round. 
• 5: Project QBs taken in the 7th round.
• 4: The most popular round for Inside Linebackers to be taken (5 of them).
• 3: The round where the first fullback was taken, as well as the first strong safety.  Teams were not impressed with this SS class.
• Also 3: The longest streak of consecutive picks for a position belongs to WR: Fernando Thomas (SF), Jackson Freitas (CHI), and Alex Henderson (DAL).
• 1: QBs taken in the first round: That Heisman-winning bum Theo Scribner. (Hi @tsweezy!)

[alexfall862]

The 49 pick difference has to be Scribner to Wilfredo?

[Jieret]

13 minutes ago, alexfall862 said:

The 49 pick difference has to be Scribner to Wilfredo?

No, 25 picks between Scribner (1-26 to KC) and Wilfredo (2-51 to NYG). 

 

(I was going to spoiler the answer in the post, but looks like that option is gone.)

[Piercewise1]

Was it center that had the 49-pick gap? I remember Prater went top-10 and I feel like there weren't any other good ones for awhile.

Also...was Illinois crazy good in the first year of the sim? They've had 9 guys drafted in two years, including last year's #1 (Rader) and #32 (Moton) overall.

[Jieret]

14 hours ago, Piercewise1 said:

Was it center that had the 49-pick gap? I remember Prater went top-10 and I feel like there weren't any other good ones for awhile.

Also...was Illinois crazy good in the first year of the sim? They've had 9 guys drafted in two years, including last year's #1 (Rader) and #32 (Moton) overall.

26-pick gap for center. Prater went 9th, then Maryland's Carlos Lackey went 35th to Miami.

[Piercewise1]

2 hours ago, Jieret said:

26-pick gap for center. Prater went 9th, then Maryland's Carlos Lackey went 35th to Miami.

Hmmm....I forgot about Lackey. 

Oh - kicker! Obada went pretty early, so it wouldn't surprise me that there was a huge gap before the next one.

[Jieret]

19 minutes ago, Piercewise1 said:

Hmmm....I forgot about Lackey. 

Oh - kicker! Obada went pretty early, so it wouldn't surprise me that there was a huge gap before the next one.

Close!  Kicker comes in second with 47 spots between Obada (63rd, DEN) and Josh Nelson (110th, CHI)

[cultur3]

Is it OLB? I feel like there was a big gap there but my memory is pretty shit

[Jieret]

13 minutes ago, cultur3 said:

Is it OLB? I feel like there was a big gap there but my memory is pretty shit

CORRECT!  After Gordon Diallo was taken 24th overall, the next OLB chosen was Syracuse 'backer Michael Garrett at 73 (3rd round) by the Chiefs.

 

 

[Sarge]

This is amazing stuff as always. Really cool to see the breakdown by conference to keep instilling that little bit of rivalry across conferences.

Next year it'd be cool to see data on how many players from the CFP teams were drafted and maybe a cumulative 3 year stretch of draftees per conference. 

You're the man, I don't care what tsweezy says about you.