It wasn’t a good NFL Draft for the ACC. There is no sugar coating it.
Every Power 5 conference had at least 21 players drafted
Which FBS conference were you most impressed with in the 2022 NFL Draft? pic.twitter.com/YidAsXNWEd
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) May 1, 2022
21 picks for 14 schools?
That’s 1.5 picks per ACC school. A breakdown of the ACC and the other conferences can be found at SI.com.
- Virginia Tech — 4
- North Carolina — 4
- NC State — 2
- Pittsburgh — 2
- Clemson — 2
- Wake Forest — 2
- Florida State — 1
- Boston College — 1
- Virginia — 1
- Georgia Tech — 1
- Miami — 1
Should we be surprised though?
In 2019 the ACC finished the year with 1 ranked team – Clemson at #2.
No other ACC team had fewer than 5 losses, and the ACC went 4-7 in bowl games and went 4-14 against Power 5 schools.
In 2020 the ACC went 0-6 in bowl games.
In 2021 the ACC went 2-4 in bowl games, and at one point lost 12 straight bowl games from 2019 – 2021.
Against Power 5 schools, the conference went 6-16.
Now you can call bowl games meaningless if you wish, but losing is losing and these Power 5 records include the regular season.
That’s a pretty good correlation to NFL Talent and results out of conference. What other conclusion can you draw?
With that said, while the improvement of the ACC in 2021 was marginal it was there.
The conference finished with 4 top 20 teams, which was the most since 2016. Going into this season the ACC will have 3-5 ranked teams.
The fruits of the start of this turnaround won’t be seen in the NFL draft until the 2023 and 2024 NFL Draft.
Clemson has a half-dozen maybe more NFL caliber players on the defensive side of the ball.
NC State has several draftable players on both sides.
Pittsburgh has several draftable players. We’ll count Jordan Addison wherever the money leads him to play.
Virginia and Wake Forest on offense have several NFL draftable players. We could go down the majority of ACC programs and find multiple NFL-caliber players.
The talent is getting to the ACC, and we’ll see that in future NFL drafts, but this year’s dismal NFL draft was the culmination of several lean years. We shouldn’t have been shocked.
