We’ve already given you our ACC Draft Winners – Virginia Tech and NC State. Now we flip things to talk about who are the ACC’s draft losers, and the choices were easy. Georgia Tech and Duke combined had exactly zero draft picks. That means South Carolina State, South Dakota State, Sam Houston State, North Carolina A&T, Fort Hays State, Central Arkansas, and Ferris State all had more picks each than Georgia Tech and Duke together.
In fact in the last two years Georgia Tech and Duke have 1 combined draft pick – that was Georgia Tech Kicker Harrison Butker.
Now Georgia Tech and Duke have in the last decade not put a lot of players in the NFL.
To both schools credit, they’ve both been to the ACC TItle games within the last 5 years, and had multiple 9+ win seasons. The below tweet shows that Duke and Georgia Tech are 1 and 2 in the last 10 years in average number of wins per draft pick.
ACC teams draft picks & W-L% over last decade… Duke is averaging 15 wins per draft pick over that time. pic.twitter.com/lRapY4bizV
— Comrade HaleBot (@DavidHaleESPN) April 28, 2018
That’s good. No one will argue that David Cutcliffe and Paul Johnson aren’t solid coaches. Duke and Georgia Tech are tough academic schools. These are not football factory schools. It’s understandable that neither school would have NFL talent all across their rosters, but if you don’t have raw talent difference makers on your team your execution has to be that much better than your opponent.
That said zero combined draft picks is not a good look. There is absolutely no way to sugar coat or dismiss Georgia Tech’s and Duke’s draft results. Virtually every single college football player dreams of playing in the NFL. It’s the number 1 recruiting pitch a coach can have – can they get you to the NFL. Sure Paul Johnson and David Cutcliffe have fairly recent examples of success they can point to. Duke had 1st round picks in 2015, and Georgia Tech had 2nd round picks in 2014 and 2016, but I can guarantee you competitors on the recruiting trail will use this year’s results against both schools.
