Now that the 2024 NFL Draft is over, there’s no need to waste time speculating about 2025. However, in the process of piecing together the results of the seven-round extravaganza, there are a few highs and lows for the top college football programs.

It seems logical that having some star power at the top of the depth chart marked the end of a three-year run that included three Big Ten titles, three trips to the College Football Playoffs, and a national championship.

And that CFP success continues with Thomas Fletcher (sixth round, 2021), who qualified for the 2023 playoffs, and now with Reichard, the first kicker selected from an Alabama squad headed by Nick Saban.

The fact that Reichard’s reliable leg has been an important component of Alabama’s recent success must have had an effect on the current coaching staff, because Kalen DeBoer moved swiftly to replace Reichard with Lou Groza Award winner Graham Nicholson, who arrived via Miami (Ohio) via the transfer link.

With one of the most talented rosters in the nation, Steve Sarkisian has coordinated what appears to be the ideal combination of high school recruiting at the highest level and additions through the transfer portal that have an immediate impact. After failing to win a Big 12 championship since 2009 and missing out on the chance to play for a national championship in its first-ever College Football Playoff trip, Texas finally had its breakout moment in 2023. Dare I say “back?”

This past weekend, the Longhorns’ record-breaking 11 NFL Draft selections set a new program record, further validating their excellence on the field. Having five in the first 52 picks was the best of any program, and five came in the first two rounds, tying Georgia, Alabama, and Washington for the most. The first-round selections of running back Jonathan Brooks and the fifth-round selection of Keilan Robinson comprised seven of the eleven picks on offense. Texas has now produced two running backs in the draft in back-to-back years, after Roschon Johnson in 2023 and Bijan Robinson in 2023.

However, we applaud Texas’ success in the draft while also acknowledging the effort Sarkisian’s staff has put in year after year to help the Longhorns get ready for life in the SEC. Our eyes are on 2024. As far as we are aware, practically every team you will play for will have future NFL Draft picks. Although Texas has lost four running backs who were projected to be selected in the NFL Draft in the last two years, they have a very good replacement in former five-star recruit CJ Baxter, who is primed for a breakout sophomore campaign.

Notable was the pass-catching exodus to the draft, but Texas took advantage of the portal to add guys like Matthew Golden, Amari Niblack, and Isaiah Bond to ensure that output does not decline. Maintaining success at the top levels of college football requires not just acquiring a ton of future NFL talent but also restocking and improving each and every offseason. Although Texas broke the previous record in 2024, the Longhorns are expected to regularly rank in the top half of these rankings going forward.

A power-conference school’s exclusion from the NFL Draft garners attention, even though not every institution will have the same fortune as Alabama, which earns many draft picks annually.

Each of these scenarios has context, and there are many more where players would prefer to be undrafted free agents and choose where they want to play than to get selected in the late rounds.

But when you total up all of the big conference draft selections, the universities that are left out of the 2024 NFL Draft are as follows:

There are vast differences in how this NFL Draft absence affects each program. While Arizona State, Colorado, Georgia Tech, and Nebraska are still in the second year of a new tenure, Indiana, Northwestern, and Syracuse are all going through coaching changes.

We don’t track NFL Draft selections by school, but some programs—like Arizona State, which signed Jayden Daniels straight out of high school—do have a claim to have aided in guiding the first-round pick to his final destination.

Speaking of the transfer site, Colorado’s exclusion is noteworthy due to the state of that program’s roster, not because of Deion Sanders. The Buffs have now gone three years without producing an NFL draft choice.

With Shedeur Sanders among the best quarterbacks who will be eligible for the draft in 2025, we do anticipate that that will alter.

It was a significant decline for the Buckeyes to only have four players selected in the 2024 NFL Draft; since 2016, Ohio State has had at least six picks in every draft. Falling in line with the same number of picks as Big Ten rivals Iowa and Illinois, one could interpret it as a jab at coach Ryan Day and the program’s status.

However, the buried narrative of Ohio State’s lack of picks is the same reason why many are projecting the Buckeyes to win the Big Ten in 2024.

Treveyon Henderson, a running back; Emmaka Egbuka, a wide receiver; Denzel Burke, a cornerback;

Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau, a pass rush combination; and Tyler Williams, a defensive lineman, were all eligible to enter the 2024 NFL Draft. Had they done so, the Buckeyes’ pick count would have been substantially closer to that of Alabama or Washington than Iowa or Illinois.

Thus, Day returns to Ohio State with a team that features six players who could be playing on Sundays but have chosen to pursue title contention in Columbus rather than rolling out a lengthy draft roster to compete with the best programs in the sport on the draft pick scoreboard.

There are several instances where colleges are holding prospective pros longer rather than accumulating draft picks due to NIL and eligibility requirements, but Ohio State has the highest concentration of elite talent returning than any other school in the nation.

As we have noted, the bitter irony lies in the Pac-12, whose members are ready to split, following up one of their greatest seasons on the field in 2023 with a historic 2024 NFL Draft performance, coming in second only to the SEC. However, it becomes even more obvious that the Big Ten and SEC are home to the majority of pro-producing programs if we were to reorganize the conference rankings.

There were 140 picks in the 2024 NFL Draft from the Big Ten or the SEC, if you were to group the colleges according to their conferences.

Though they aren’t always on par with the Alabamas and Georgias of the world, programs like Washington, Oregon, and

USC are among the best in the nation for producing NFL players in the modern age, and they now bring that talent to the Big Ten.

Texas and Oklahoma, which together accounted for 14 of the 31 draft picks from the Big 12, which finished sixth among the top conferences this year, are also helping the SEC.

Actually, only Florida State (10), Notre Dame (7), and Clemson (6)—of the universities with six or more players chosen—will not be Big Ten or SEC teams in 2024. Although the two super leagues have always had an advantage in the NFL Draft, that advantage will certainly grow following this summer’s restructuring.