Temple, Utah State, Cincinnati, and Fresno State may seem like random schools with little-known sports programs, but they all have one thing in common: Each school produced just as many prospects who made the NFL’s Top 100 players of 2024 list as yearly National Championship contenders such as Georgia, Michigan, and Penn State.
When people think about college programs and the NFL draft, the usual powerhouses come to mind, and for good reason. As of the 2024 season, USC produced the most NFL draft picks of all time (523), closely followed by Notre Dame (520), Ohio State (487), and Oklahoma (417). While producing that many NFL-ready players surely warrants a strong reputation, NFL teams don’t win based on how many players they draft, they win with top-tier talent.
Football fans assume that a player from a well-known school is going to outperform the rest of the field. However, the question is whether these historically strong schools are still producing elite NFL talent or just dumping system players into the league on reputation alone. To find out, we decided to cross-reference the colleges with the most-drafted players with the alma maters of the NFL’s most recent top 100 players.
Some of the results were fairly predictable. Of the 10 schools with the most draft picks, Alabama, the university with the sixth most draft picks ever (409), led the way in terms of star players with 10. Notre Dame and Ohio State both had the second-most top 100 players with five. Oklahoma and LSU (376) were right after them with four. Finally, Michigan (412), Penn State (390), and Georgia (379) each had two players make the most recent rankings.
Two schools, USC and Florida, stuck out as major disappointments. USC bolstered just one elite player leading into 2024, while 10th-ranked Florida (367) did not have anyone. Of course, both programs could see a boost in their numbers this year, but for now, it is an unfortunate look for two historic programs.
On the brighter side, some schools have put out impressive recent talent despite far less quantity. As mentioned above, Temple, Utah State, Cincinnati, and Fresno State all had two players in the top 100 despite each school having fewer than 135 players ever drafted. Eastern Michigan and the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff both have a player on the list from fewer than 35 draft picks, and UTSA is home to a star player with only four picks ever.
Of course, this comparison is not an exact science. This exercise does not consider players who were all-pros at some point in their football careers, and the top 100 list changes yearly due to injuries, sophomore slumps, and talent rollover. That does not mean, however, that these findings cannot teach us something.
None of this is to argue that Temple is a comparable football school to Alabama, nor is it to suggest that Florida is no longer home to a viable football program. While statistics tell one part of the story, there’s also a human element worth highlighting. The biggest takeaway is simply that NFL legends can come from anywhere. Those hidden gems, the players that paved their own paths to the league, are part of what makes the NFL so special, and their stories should be told just as often as those of the former five-star recruit who won the National Championship. The athletes deserve to be recognized, and so do their schools.
