The 2011 NFL Draft provided a chance for conferences to secure bragging rights and, once again, the SEC won. College football's power conference led the way with 38 draft picks, but the rest of the list had plenty of surprises. Coming in second was the ACC, just three players behind the SEC. Non-FBS teams also fared quite well, with 25 taken in the seven rounds of the draft.
Here is the breakdown of 2011 NFL Draft picks by conference. Matt Baxendell tracked these all and tweeted them shortly after the draft ended.
SEC: 38. Not surprisingly, the SEC led the way and secured bragging rights for yet another year. With the BCS Championship, Heisman, No. 1 overall pick and most draft picks, the SEC made it a clean sweep.
ACC: 35. Color me perplexed with this one. Overall, the ACC isn't spectacular, yet produced the second-most picks in the 2011 NFL Draft. Sum of all parts is less than the individual pieces?
Pac-10: 31. The Pac-10 still has USC and a seventh round push that saw three Trojans taken in a row bumped the Pac-10 up here.
Big 12: 30. Colorado did surprisingly well in addition to the typical powers.
Big Ten: 29. The Big Ten just missed catching the Big 12. Then again, if we count Nebraska as a Big Ten school, they'd have this one.
Big East: 21. Bad football, good draft picks.
WAC: 16. Well, this was probably the WAC's last stand now the conference is blown to pieces.
MWC: 10. Nevada led the way here as Colin Kaepernick was the poster boy.
Conference USA: Five. Not a bad showing for Conference
MAC: Three. Hustle Belt should be happy.
Non-FBS: 25. FCS, Division II and Division III schools made out well as undiscovered and untapped talent was swept up in the later rounds. Not a bad showing at all.
Also interesting was Baxendell's picks per team ratio. Once again, the SEC took home the title, with the Pac-10 close behind.
Ratio of picks/teams: #SEC 3.25 #PacTen 3.0 #ACC 2.92 #BigTen 2.64 #BigEast 2.63 #BigXII 2.50 #WAC 1.78
We'll be compiling all the post-draft notes in our 2011 NFL Draft recap StoryStream, including positional breakdowns, picks by conference, picks by school and more. Keep an eye on our post-draft StoryStream for interesting tidbits, facts, figures and all sorts of reaction. To find you favorite team, be sure to explore our 305 sports blogs for a local angle.