2010 Draft Predictors

SI.com's Andrew Perloff predicts Jon Dwyer as the first runningback taken in the 2010 draft.

Onlinesportsfanatic.com has a poll for voting of best runningback in 2010 Draft Class including Jon Dwyer, C.J. Spiller, Jahvid Best, Joe McKnight, or other.

Collegefootballnews.com has their top 250 NFL prospects listed for 2010 and Jon Dwyer is listed at #25.

Worries, predictions, etc. are welcome.

NFL Draft Thoughts III

ACC
The ACC faired pretty in the 2009 NFL Draft having 4 players selected in the top 10. Heyward-Bey was a pretty big shock but then again the Raiders are always shocking in the Draft.

The ACC had 33 players selected, which was second behind the SEC for most picks. Maryland and UNC had the most ACC players selected in the '09 Draft with 5 apiece (Tech was tied with Clemson/UVA at 4). Miami, interestingly enough, didn't have a player selected until the 6th round. This ended a 14 year streak of first round draft picks from the U. Not surprising considering all of the talent in Florida has been going to UF or leaving the state since Ron Zook took over the Gators and Coker started coaching the U.

Georgia Tech
Generally speaking, you're always disappointed with where your hometown players are selected. You're happy Calvin was selected #2 but you wished he was #1. So when Michael Johnson fell to the 3rd round, there was little surprise that the Yellow Jacket Family freaked out considering his dominating senior season that appeared "inconsistent" to NFL scouts.

I'm incredibly happy both our DT's got drafted. Honestly, there probably aren't any other teams in the country that had three players drafted off their starting DL. And I'm positive Derrick Morgan will end up on a roster in a couple years.

Atlanta Falcons
I've gotta talk about the ATL hometown team. The Falcons drafted all defense except one OT. It makes a whole lot of sense since we lost 5 defensive starters (including GT's Keith Brooking). Overall the Falcons draft was great but there's gonna be a helluva young secondary next year with little experience for a couple years to come.

The Falcons also finally picked a GT player since coincidentally Keith Brooking's selection in 1998. Vance Walker will definitely find a spot for at least a couple of seasons and we'll see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if he finds himself starting in 2-3 years.

Any thoughts on the sporting weekend are welcome unless they pertain to a certain baseball series.

NFL Draft Thoughts II

I saw this grading system for players on SI.com and thought I'd share it with everyone. Here's a breakdown of some notable ACC players as well as ours:

B.J. Raji (BC) - 4.21
Ron Brace (BC) - 3.88
Michael Hamlin (CU) - 3.55
James Davis (CU) - 3.43
Aaron Kelly (CU) - 3.40
Cullen Harper (CU) - 3.30
Everette Brown (FSU) - 4.25
Darius Heyward-Bey (MD) - 4.04
Andre Brown (NCSU) - 3.23
Hakeem Nicks (UNC) - 3.99
Trimaine Goddard (UNC) - 3.23
Brandon Tate (UNC) - 3.42
Eugene Monroe (UVA) - 4.26
Cedric Peerman (UVA) - 3.63
Victor "Macho" Harris (VT) - 3.50
Sean Glennon (VT) - 2.55
Aaron Curry (Wake) - 4.36
Sam Swank (Wake) - 3.50

GT Players
Michael Johnson - 3.99
Vance Walker - 3.48
Andrew Gardner - 3.40
Darryl Richard - 3.32
Jahi Word-Daniels - 3.29

I linked the GT players to their NFL.com combine profiles for additional reading. I find it interesting just because I've watched a lot these ACC players for four years thinking they were unstoppable or great at the college level. Then, you see them get torn down like a bunch of mediocre talent by NFL scouts. I think the ratings are also interesting in that Miami/Duke only have one player in the same class as GT's five. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Also, a shoutout to Brendan From Old Virginia as one of the few Detroit Lions fans left. View Calvin Johnson and the new Detroit Lions jerseys here.

Thoughts on the upcoming draft/college football season welcome.

NFL Draft Thoughts

I was thinking about draft picks today and who GT should be sending to the NFL. It got me wondering about ACC draft picks in general (as it did for Tomahawk Nation). Let's assume NFL draft picks are a legitimate method of quantitative analysis for talent.

Since 2000, the ACC has had 269 players drafted (excluding supplemental), which is around 30 per year. The addition of Miami, VT, and BC increased our talent pool tremendously. The increased interest of a twelve team conference increased the yearly average of picks of the old nine from 20 picks/year to 25 picks/year. So anyone that says the addition has negatively affected the average quality of ACC players or ACC play in general is dumb. Actually the only loser right now in the expansion is Miami but that's an entirely different story.

Now, what does it take talent-wise to win in the ACC? Here's a linear regression based on ACC draft picks/year related to total wins/year: 0.375*(NFL picks) + 5.7584 = Total Wins. So basically, no draft picks equates to about 5-6 wins and each draft pick on your team gives you a third of a win. Not too bad.

Using draft picks as an indicator of coaching prowess (winning more with less) is also interesting. If you were to take the draft picks required to win and rank the programs since 2000, here's what you'd get (years with 0 picks = 0.9 picks and BC stats only back to '04/Miami and VT back to '03):

12. Miami - 1.38 wins/pick
11. Duke - 1.70 wins/pick
10. FSU - 1.8 wins/pick
9. VT - 2.34 wins/pick
8. UNC - 2.65 wins/pick
7. NCSU - 2.85 wins/pick
6. Clemson - 2.85 wins/pick
5. UVA - 3.24 wins/pick
4. Wake - 4.08 wins/pick
3. MD - 4.19 wins/pick
2. GT - 4.65 wins/pick
1. BC - 5.46 wins/pick

Looking at the numbers, I can see why Amato, Bunting, Bowden, and Coker were terminated. They were collecting talent but not winning. Now, you must also account for the fact that this is a logarithm with a ~10-11 win plateau while your number of draft picks can go up to 85 (if you're Team America). Hence, VT appears to be poorly coached but in actuality wins a lot and gets a lot draft picks.

Gailey's termination came because he wasn't getting that extra win. Maybe developing 1 or so more NFL prospects a year would've meant Gailey'd still be at Tech. You never know.