2011 NFL Draft: Recent Boston College NFL Draft History

Rivals recently had an interesting piece breaking down NFL Draft picks by college and conference, and Boston College fares quite well. Seven Eagles have been first round NFL Draft picks since 2000, good for 15th among all NCAA programs and third in the ACC, behind Miami (26) and Florida State (14).

Those seven are Chris Hovan (2000), William Green (2002), Marc Colombo (2002), Mathias Kiwanuka (2006), Matt Ryan (2008), Gosder Cherilus (2008) and B.J. Raji (2009), for those keeping track at home.

However, BC's 22 draft picks over the last 10 years ranks the program just tenth in the conference, ahead of only Wake Forest (19) and Duke (2). Miami leads the conference with 67 Draft picks, followed closely by Florida State (59) and Virginia (52).

Of all of BC's draft picks over the last 10 years, the Eagles have produced a high percentage of first-rounders (31.82 percent). That figure is better than every other NCAA program with the exception of Miami (26-67, 38.81 percent) and UAB (2-6, 33.33 percent). BC certainly makes its draft picks count.

As a conference, the ACC has produced the most first-round NFL Draft picks of any other conference (79), five better than the SEC. The SEC does stake claim to the most NFL Draft picks over this span with 451, 56 better than the second place ACC.

The general BCS conference pecking order for producing NFL Draft talent over the last decade is SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Pac 10, Big 12 ... precipitous drop-off ... Big East. Sure the Big East has the fewest number of programs of any BCS conference, but that still doesn't explain it. The Big East produced an average of 2.06 draft picks a program since 2000, which is still dead last among BCS conferences. The ACC has produced an average of 3.29 per program per year, which ranked fourth behind the SEC (3.76), Big 10 (3.5) and the Pac 10 (3.31).