The Big 12, Texas and the NFL Draft...
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Alright, the writing...
1) The Big 12 and the NFL Draft
By the end of the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft the Big 12 turned into the chief target of Twitter comedians. The media does its best to become jokesters and NFL general managers by the end of the first round. “Tulsa and North Dakota State had more first-round picks than the entire Big 12!!!!!” Yep, that happened. Sadly, I just shrugged my shoulders. I wasn’t surprised.
The good part about each NFL Draft is it makes it more difficult for ignorant people to push back on the idea that stars and recruiting don’t matter. Sure, there will always be guys who end up at smaller schools and blow up for a variety of reasons. But you’re blind or being purposely obtuse if you look at draft results and ignore the data on five and four-star prospects. The SEC, for the 15th-straight year, led all conferences with NFL Draft picks. Here’s a hint: the SEC has been recruiting better than every conference for well over a decade.
I’m in a hint-giving mood today. Here’s another: while the Big 12 is going to have first-round picks in the future (duh), it isn’t ever going to match how many draft picks leagues like the SEC and Big Ten are producing. Well, let’s not go that far and just say it isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Why? There isn’t a single thing about programs like Oklahoma State, TCU, Iowa State and Baylor that suggests they’re going to suddenly start recruiting much better and producing more NFL players than they already do.
Heck, look at the draft picks Oklahoma State had this past season and look at its season results. Mike Gundy accepts Oklahoma State isn’t ever going to recruit any better, is totally comfortable with it and it’s why his ceiling as a coach is 10 wins with the occasional great season. Since he joined the Big 12, Gary Patterson has finished ranked three times and unranked six times. He might be a great evaluator, but he’s not going to finish in the top 10 of recruiting class rankings.
As good of a coach as Matt Campbell is, Iowa State isn’t going to soon reel in a bunch of Rivals250 players and the same goes for Baylor even if Dave Aranda turns into a good coach because that would mean he’ll probably just leave for another job. West Virginia has quietly elevated its recruiting profile some, but its recruiting potential is never going to be in the same league as Texas and Oklahoma. And who the hell knows about the Kansas schools and Texas Tech?
All these programs and coaches could turn into developmental machines, but even that wouldn’t match the other programs across the country reeling in elite prospects each year as the same teams keep going to the college football playoff over and over and over again. This is the Big 12. It’s not going to change. Kansas State and Iowa State aren’t going to suddenly relocate their campuses and Gundy and Patterson aren’t going to become elite recruiters overnight...
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