What Does the 2011 NFL Draft Tell Us About College Football?

Another edition of the NFL Draft is complete, and focus has already shifted to Andrew Luck and other 2012 hopefuls, but there is still an opportunity to learn from the results of the 2011 version. Draft data is the single most useful tool we have in quantifying the talent levels of players, and through cumulative player data we can measure the talent level of each conference and draw conclusions from the findings.

Unfortunately, raw numbers can be deceiving without any meaningful context. The Big Ten had 29 players selected in the 2011 draft and the Pac-10 had 32, leading some to rank the Pac-10 as the more talented conference. But the majority of Pac-10 players were spread throughout the middle and late rounds of the draft, while the Big Ten had 6 first-round picks and 10 within the first two rounds. Should David Ausberry, a seventh-round Pac-10 selection, count just as much as J.J. Watt, a first-round Big Ten pick?

I think everyone agrees that raw numbers are a poor way to measure talent in the NFL Draft. We must account for the round in which a player was selected to filter out some of the "noise" and to better ascertain which conferences are really producing the most talent. To do so, I've developed a very simple system that rewards higher draft picks on a points system that follows a steady, descending slope. First round picks receive 7 points, second round picks receive 6 points, and so on, until we finish with seventh-round picks, who only receive 1 point apiece. I've dubbed the system "Draft Score," and I think it adds some needed context into draft analysis without using complicated formulas.

Draft Score relies on one important theorem: the higher a player is drafted, the more talented he is. It is a pretty safe assumption to make, but it's still an assumption, so I turned to Advanced NFL Stats for some research.

This chart, and two others on Advanced NFL Stats, indicates that talent does indeed correlate to draft position. The higher you are selected in the NFL Draft, the more talented you probably are.

Once I determined that Draft Score made theoretical sense, I needed to apply the points system to each round of the draft, segregating the players selected into their respective conferences and tallying up the aggregate points to reach a total. Thankfully, the USA Today Draft Database made that process much easier than it sounds.

I left out the WAC, because it won't exist in a meaningful form after this season. Boise State, Fresno State, and Nevada were the top talent producers from the conference, and without them, the WAC will cease to matter in the NFL Draft.

We are left, then, with seven major conferences, six of which are BCS members, accounting for most of the talent drafted in 2011. It's important to note that not all conferences have the same number of members. The SEC, ACC, and Big 12 each have twelve teams, the Big Ten has eleven, the Pac-10 has ten, the Mountain West has nine, and the Big East only has eight.

Over the next two seasons, these numbers will shift all over the place, but that can be adjusted in future editions. Right now, we'll attribute Nebraska's talent to the Big 12 because said talent never played a single conference game against the Big Ten.

Unquestionably, the SEC won the draft. The conference has deserved acclaim for the championships it has won the past five seasons, but the success of the SEC is not magically gained. The SEC wins because the SEC has the most talent, both in raw and adjusted numbers.

ACC fans should be proud of their conference, as well. While Draft Score penalizes them a bit for not having many first round picks, it recognizes the tremendous amount of second round talent they had selected. Twelve ACC players went in the second round, seven more than the next closest conference. ACC fans can't quite claim that they are in the same talent tier as the SEC, but they can at least know they exist in a second tier of their own, ahead of the Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac-10.

Other Thoughts

• If you want one reason why the Big Ten experienced a resurgence last season, look to the defensive line. Five defensive linemen from five different Big Ten teams were selected in the first round. That was more, much more, than any other conference, including the mighty SEC.
• Some prognosticators believe the MWC is better than the Big East, but I think we can put that idea to rest. The MWC conference has a better top team, TCU, than the Big East, but the overall talent level of the nine member conference does not match up with the eight member Big East.
• That said, I think there's an argument to be had against the Big East's automatic BCS bid. Much of the venom directed towards the BCS could be reduced if the Big East's bid became another open bid going to the most deserving team. In a year where we had two non-automatic qualifiers clearly better than the Big East's best, a lot of the argument over Boise State and TCU could have been avoided if Connecticut did not receive an automatic invitation to the BCS party.
  
• Should first round selections receive even more points than 7? I toyed with the idea of further rewarding first round picks with 8 points, but I ultimately decided against it for simplicity's sake. I do want to tinker with the formula for future editions, and one adjustment that makes sense to me is dividing the top ten from the rest of the first round. Top ten picks are the crème de la crème, and should be rewarded as such.

How many points should top ten picks receive? 8, or even more?