Published April 26, 2012 - 10:22pm
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You don’t have to look long to find just how dominate the SEC has been over the course of the last several years. As if the six BCS National Championships in a row doesn’t spell it out for you, maybe draft night did.
No one conference in the history of the modern NFL Draft has had over eight players selected in the first 18 picks, and the SEC flexed its muscle once more.
The SEC was the talk of draft night, and no SEC player was even selected at No. 1 or No. 2.
Here is how the SEC fared on draft night:
No. 3 Trent Richardson, RB, Cleveland Browns
No. 6 Morris Claiborne, DB, Dallas Cowboys
No. 7 Mark Barron, DB, Tampa Bay Bucs
No. 10 Stephon Gilmore, DB, Buffalo Bills
No. 12 Fletcher Cox, DT, Philadelphia Eagles
No. 14 Michael Brockers, DT, St. Louis Rams
No. 17 Dre Kirkpatrick, DB, Cincinnati Bengals
No. 18 Melvin Ingram, DE, South Carolina
No. 25 Dont’a Hightower, LB, New England Patriots
Breakdown by conference:
- SEC: 9
- Big 12: 5
- Pac 12: 4
- Big Ten: 4
- ACC: 3
- MWC: 2
- Independent: 2
- Big East: 2
- CUSA: 1
The one player seemingly left out of the first round was Alabama LB Courtney Upshaw. Upshaw was the fifth player in question for the Tide to make it in the first round, but it did not happen. He will be an early second round pick.
