NFL draft first-round talent distribution by conference

The SEC’s pipeline to the NFL has been well documented, as has its superiority to the other conferences regarding the number of top draft picks in recent years.

But upon looking back and tallying the first round picks of the last five years, the SEC’s edge over the other conferences is even more lopsided than most might have imagined. Of the 160 first-round picks in the last five drafts, the SEC claims 49 of those picks, an average of just below 10 first rounders per year and more than 30 percent of the total first-round selections in that time.

The SEC’s streak of consecutive drafts with the most first-round picks was snapped this year when it fell two picks shy of both the ACC and Pac 12, but it led the nation in first round draftees in each of the four years prior. The SEC is also the only conference to claim 10 or more first-round picks in the last five years, and it achieved the feat three times; prior to this year, no other conference had even had nine first-round selections in any draft in the last five years.

The 2011 draft is especially interesting from an SEC perspective because not only did five of the top seven overall picks hail from SEC schools, but the two that didn’t played for Texas A&M and Missouri, the two schools that would join the SEC just two years later.

Take a look below at a full breakdown of first-round picks by year and by conference in the last five years. Although the SEC’s dominance is obvious, notice the trends of the other conferences. The ACC and Pac 12 trend positively in moving toward the present, while the Big Ten and Big 12’s best days are now a few years removed.

Ten different conferences claimed at least one first-round pick since 2011, as did independents Notre Dame and BYU.