Which school trains the best NFL players?

The Real No. 1


Which school trains the best NFL players? Measuring each pro's impact last year, Sam Walker crunches the numbers to find top contributors and underrated programs. And the winner is...


By SAM WALKER
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

On the cusp of the 2006 college football season, the Florida State Seminoles have a few things to be concerned about. That bitter loss to Penn State in the Orange Bowl, those preseason polls that have them finishing outside the top 10 or the trio of freshmen who'll be playing at tight end.

But there's one thing the players shouldn't be too worried about: whether they'll be able to hold down a job in the National Football League.

Forget all the plaques, trophies and hard-won jugs and buckets you see in campus trophy cases. After poring over detailed summaries for hundreds of games in the NFL, we've devised a new yardstick for measuring the greatness of college football programs -- how well their alumni perform in the pros.

COLLEGE-FOOTBALL SUCCESS INDEX



We looked at how many of each school's alumni have made it to the NFL and how effective they have been there. See the results of our analysis. (Note: An earlier version of this article contained an incorrect version of the rankings chart.)

WALL STREET JOURNAL VIDEO



Dow Jones Online's Jean Lee interviews Journal reporter Sam Walker about his study that ranks college football programs based on their record for producing the most effective NFL players.With 45 players taking the field in the NFL last season and more than 25 starting regularly for some of the league's best teams, Florida State came out on top. In fact, they blew away the next best school by a wide margin. "I'm surprised, but in a good way," says Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden, who's prowled the sidelines in Tallahassee since 1976. "I'd like to think we're working our players harder than some of these other guys."

To create these rankings, we copied down the official rosters for every NFL game played last season, giving each player a separate entry for each game -- about 27,000 in all. We grouped the players by college, and then gave each school points based on the role their alumni played. Starters earned more than substitutes or benchwarmers, and players involved in wins gained extra points. So under our system, Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning, who started every game for a team that won 14 of 16, earned 94 points for his alma mater, Tennessee -- while a decent bench player from an average team would earn about half that. We tallied each school's total points to arrive at an "alumni success score" for more than 250 schools from Notre Dame to Northern Arizona.


Indianapolis Colts' Peyton Manning, from Tennessee
What did we learn?

There's no sense in questioning the primacy of college football in Florida. Coming in second, just behind the Seminoles, was the University of Florida, with downstate rival Miami also cracking the top 10. Our alumni success scores also affirm the power of traditional college football heavyweights like Tennessee (No. 4), Ohio State (No. 5) and Michigan (No. 6) -- schools where, incidentally, players regularly compete in front of home crowds in excess of 100,000. Overall, representatives from the schools in our Top 10 accounted for more than one-fifth of all the alumni success points earned by players in the NFL last year, while schools in the Top 30 accounted for nearly half.

Plenty of Surprises

But there were plenty of surprises. Aided by everything from former NFL coaches to solid academics and rigorous conditioning programs, some colleges have sent more players to the NFL than their records would justify. Though they don't always crack the postseason polls, Virginia, Purdue, Texas A&M and California all made our Top 30, while North Carolina -- a team that hasn't ended a season ranked in the AP poll since 1997 -- finished ahead of powerhouses like Penn State, Texas and USC.

Another mystery: How little all this seems to matter to NFL scouts. To test whether NFL teams have been valuing college programs properly, we gave every school a score based on how many of its alumni were taken (and in which rounds) during recent NFL drafts. We assumed schools with high alumni success rates would have high draft scores. That wasn't always true.


New England Patriots' Tom Brady, from Michigan
Take Miami: NFL scouts have rewarded the school's players more often and with higher draft picks than players from any other school lately. But for a number of reasons, including injuries, the Hurricanes managed only a No. 7 ranking on our alumni success chart. The same goes for Oklahoma: Products of the Sooners' system have been highly prized in the draft but limped in at 28th overall.

Perhaps the loudest surprise came from one of the quietest programs in our study: East Carolina. While Pirates players have been all but invisible to NFL scouts in recent years, the school still had eight alums playing in the NFL last season who racked up 401 success points -- more than better-known schools like Missouri, Kentucky and Tulane. Head coach Skip Holtz says the school's under-the-radar status helps its players come to the NFL ready to knock down walls if necessary. "It's not a mentality of, 'Look, I played in the biggest of the bigs, I'm all-conference, I'm the man,' " he says. "It's more like, 'I've got to prove that I can get this done.' "

College programs can't do everything, of course. In recent years, new NCAA regulations have reduced the time coaches can work with players. Now that more colleges are running schemes like the "spread offense" that aren't popular in the pros, NFL scouts are paying more attention to raw talent. No matter how well-coached a player is, he isn't likely to play in the NFL if he doesn't meet the basic physical requirements. Mike Giddings Jr. of Pro Scout Inc., a firm that assesses talent for NFL teams, says scouts start their evaluations by looking for one thing. "Speed, plain and simple," he says. "Then strength." The easiest way for a school to produce pros, he says, is to recruit the best athletes.


Carolina Panthers' Julius Peppers, from North Carolina
Nonetheless, the schools in our Top 30 didn't get there by recruiting alone. One reason some college programs make good pro pipelines, NFL executives say, is because they've hired a coach with pro experience. Several schools on our list -- including USC, Notre Dame and Nebraska -- have improved their standing lately by hiring from the NFL. North Carolina coach John Bunting not only worked in three NFL cities, he's one of the few college coaches who also played in the league. Another is Baylor's Guy Morriss, whose school also made our list of the most-underrated NFL pipelines.

 

continued:

After leaving the New York Jets in 2001 for the top job at Virginia, Al Groh has been casting his offense and defense in the NFL mold. The Cavaliers are one of the few college teams that use the 3-4 defensive alignment popular in the pros -- three down linemen and four linebackers -- which may help explain their solid alumni success. When one of his alums visits from the NFL, Mr. Groh says, the typical response is: "Wow. So much of what we did up there was what we were exposed to here."

Welcoming the Scouts

Off the field, coaches with NFL resumes often make another adjustment: giving a warm welcome to pro scouts. While most schools are imposing more restrictions on when NFL scouts can visit campus to watch practices and study game film -- Penn State allows scouts to visit for only one week all season -- many former pro coaches have kept the door open. At USC, ex-NFL coach Pete Carroll has offered scouts almost unlimited access. In North Carolina, Mr. Bunting keeps a meeting room open and gives scouts generous access to coaches, video technicians and trainers. "Those guys know they're welcome on campus," he says.

MOST UNDERRATED


Among 250-plus schools that sent alumni to the NFL, these produced players who performed better than their draft level would have predicted..:
SCHOOL DRAFT VALUE
1. East Carolina 66.8
2. Arizona 60.3
3. San Jose State 50.9
4. West Virginia 50.0
5. Colorado State 46.5
6. Baylor 46.1
7. Indiana 44.8
8. So. Mississippi 37.6
9. Georgia Tech 34.2
10. North Carolina 31.2


MOST OVERRATED


...while alumni of the following schools performed below the level their draft status would have indicated.
SCHOOL DRAFT VALUE
1. Texas Christian 8.2
2. Oregon State 10.7
3. Miami (Fla.) 10.9
4. Oklahoma 12.1
5. Arkansas 14.6
6. Wisconsin 15.4
7. Ohio State 15.6
8. Georgia 15.8
9. Oregon 16.0
10. Utah 16.2

Underrated: Schools whose alums made fewer than 112 appearances on NFL rosters last year weren't included; Overrated: Schools with fewer than 40 Draft Success Points weren't included.By the same token, many of these ex-NFL coaches encourage their pro alumni to come back to campus to work out with current players or just talk to them about life at the next level. Some coaches send T-shirts to NFL alumni or offer them sideline passes to the games. If NFL players come to campus the day of a meeting, Mr. Bunting says, "I'll put them in front of the team."

At East Carolina, the football program has followed another road to NFL success. As a lesser-known school surrounded by major programs, the Pirates have a tough time landing recruits with ready-made NFL size and speed. So the challenge, according to Mr. Holtz, is building them from the ground up. For years, this was the job of strength coach Jeff Connors, who trained many of the school's current NFL players. He describes his approach as "extreme conditioning." When players weren't sprinting up stadium steps carrying 65-pound bags of concrete, he was making them run ten 300-yard sprints, each in under 55 seconds, with only 30 seconds of rest in between.

Thanks to a diet and weightlifting program designed by Mr. Connors, one Pirates player, Dwayne Ledford, added 80 pounds to his 235-pound frame and later caught on with the New Orleans Saints. "There's no possible way anyone conditioned harder than we did," Mr. Connors says. Today Mr. Connors works for another school on our list, North Carolina, where he's still coming up with unique training methods. "I have a sand pit that I'm enjoying," he says.

NFL executives say there's no consensus for what makes a great college program. Some think academics are crucial, others say grades bear little relation to a player's football intelligence. Our results on this subject aren't definitive, either: While players from many schools with high academic standards showed up on our list, Stanford's alumni didn't quite live up to their draft expectations.

So who do the scouts like? Tom Modrak, assistant general manager of the Buffalo Bills, says he never misses a scouting trip to Ohio State -- not just because of the talent and the intense pressure the players face, but because the staff embraces scouts. "They're rooting for their kids to make the next step," he says. Not surprisingly, the Bills have drafted six Buckeyes since 1999, including three in the first round.

'They're Overachievers'

Scot McCloughan, personnel chief for the San Francisco 49ers, has two favorites. The first is Michigan, where he's a big fan of the school's offensive linemen. They're not "fancypants footwork guys," he says, but they tend to be intelligent Midwestern kids with sound technique and a solid work ethic. "They're overachievers," he says. His other choice is Miami, a school where current NFL stars like Ray Lewis make a point to visit their alma mater to push the undergrads -- even calling to ride them when they don't measure up. "The message is, 'You gotta represent us in the NFL and keep this tradition going,' " Mr. McCloughan says. "Ninety-five percent of those kids have one goal in life -- to play in the NFL. When they don't make it, they feel they're letting the school down." Whether or not they ultimately pan out, Mr. McCloughan says, "they're ready to play their rookie year."

As for Florida State, the secret seems to be continuity. Mr. Bowden, who's 76 years old, has had the same defensive coordinator, Mickey Andrews, since 1983. "We hardly ever lose a coach," Mr. Bowden says. Over the years, the Seminoles have hammered out an ironclad system. They recruit top athletes, keep the schemes relatively simple and let their athletes win games.

While other coaches focus on complex game plans, Mr. Bowden emphasizes fundamentals like blocking, tackling and holding on to the football -- an approach he likens to preparing a soldier for battle. "You've got all the artillery, bombers and bazookas, but if you can't handle that rifle, you can't make it."

If he's done his job, Mr. Bowden says, a Seminole player will arrive in the NFL with superior athletic talent, a deep appreciation for the fundamentals and above all, respect. "We hope he is obedient to his coaches, obedient to his parents and obedient to authority," Mr. Bowden says. "It's so easy to see the ones who are not."

 

and this is the actual rankings of the top ten programs:

The Dow Jones College-Football Success Index
Seeking a different way to measure the success of college football programs, we looked at how many of each school's alumni have made it to the NFL and how effective they've been there. After copying down every player who appeared on an NFL game roster in 2005 and sorting them by college, we devised a six-point scale and gave every player a score based on what role they played in each game (a start was worth more than a substitution) and the outcome (a win was worth more than a loss). The totals for all players from each school are tabulated in "Alumni Success Points." To see how the performance of a school's players squared up with the perceptions of NFL scouts, we also ranked schools by how popular their players have been in five recent NFL Drafts -- a statistic we call "Draft Success Points." By dividing a college's Alumni Success Points by its Draft Success Points, we were able to give each school a "Draft Value," which shows whether or not its players have lived up to their draft promise -- in other words, whether a school is overrated or underrated by the NFL. Below, from a field of more than 250 colleges, the Top 30 programs in the Dow Jones College-Football Success Index. (For more details on our methodology, see How We Did It.)
RANK COLLEGE AVERAGE
SUCCESS
POINTS DRAFT
SUCCESS
POINTS DRAFT
VALUE
(RANK) STANDOUT
PLAYERS COMMENT

1. Florida State
Seminoles 2,720 144 18.9 (19) Michael Boulware
Derrick Brooks
Chris Hope
Greg Spires No contest: Former Seminoles blew away the pack, finishing first by an 11% margin. Scouts say top athletes and an emphasis on teaching fundamentals make the Seminoles great pros.
2. Florida
Gators 2,450 120 20.4 (17) Jevon Kearse
Andra Davis
Gerald Warren
Cooper Carlisle
Mike Peterson
Max Starks Gators have had some rocky seasons lately, but it's not for a lack of talent. Alumni linebackers Andra Davis and Mike Peterson were 5th and 8th in the NFL in total tackles last year.
3. Georgia
Bulldogs 2,420 153 15.8 (26) Hines Ward
Champ Bailey
Robert Geathers
Odell Thurman
George Foster Stingy defense helped Bulldogs finish in the Associated Press Top 10 for four straight seasons. Three of its four Pro-Bowlers play defense, including Denver interception machine Champ Bailey.
4. Tennessee
Volunteers 2,350 110 21.4 (12) Peyton Manning
Jamal Lewis
Deon Grant
John Henderson
Gibril Wilson Quarterback Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts (14-2 last season) was one of the NFL's most valuable players, racking up 94 success points for the Volunteers out of a possible 96. But nearly 60% of Tennessee's points came from alumni on lousy teams like Green Bay.
5. Ohio State
Buckeyes 2,310 148 15.6 (27) Orlando Pace
Terry Glenn
Joey Galloway
Mike Vrabel NFL scouts love the Buckeyes, who had five players taken in the first round of this year's draft. But thanks to a few notable busts -- like RB Maurice Clarett, drafted last year by Denver -- Ohio State players didn't fare well on our Draft Value scale.

 

I love stuff like this. Thanks.

I have a hard time believing that scouts really start with measurables rather than tape, though, or that 40 time would rank so much higher than other agility tests.

 

Makes me wonder why they used wins and losses to allocate points to individual players...Anyway...great stuff.

 

Good read...it's always amazed me how UNC can suck so bad in football every year yet, they have produced so many good players that go on to have great pro careers. Hopefully, the Butch Davis era will change things around and produce winning seasons as well as good pro players.

 

Free Willy.



Great article, btw. A little outdated considering Bunting is no longer the UNC coach.

 

Good shit. Thanks, Larry.