Jump to content

Measurements and other tidbits from the combine


Stl Bills

Recommended Posts

Today, rise and shine was at 6 a.m. when the players lined up for the drug test. When that was completed, they came over to the RCA Dome to get their measurements for height, weight, hands and arm length, Then they were off for their physicals.

 

Here are some of the superlatives from that group:

 

Tackles

 

Tallest: Dennis Roland, Georgia, 6-foot-9 5/8

Heaviest: Charles Spencer, Pittsburgh, 352 pounds

Longest arms: Rashad Butler, Miami, 36 inches; Terrence Pennington, New Mexico, 36 inches

Biggest hands: Kevin Boothe, Cornell, 11 1/8 inches

 

Guards

 

Tallest: Dan Stevenson, Notre Dame, 6-foot-5 1/8

Heaviest: Max Jean-Gilles, Georgia, 355 pounds

Longest arms: Davin Joseph, Oklahoma, 35 1/8 inches

Biggest hands: Davin Joseph, Oklahoma, 11 1/4 inches

 

Centers

 

Tallest: Ryan Cook, New Mexico, 6-foot-6 5/8

Heaviest: Ryan Cook, New Mexico, 328 pounds

Longest arms: Mike Degory, Florida, 34 inches

Biggest hands: Nick Mangold, Ohio State, 10 3/8 inches

 

Running backs (first group)

 

Tallest: Gilbert Harris, Arizona, 6-foot-1 5/8

Shortest: Maurice Drew, UCLA, 5-foot-6 3/4

Heaviest: Gilbert Harris, Arizona, 235 pounds

Lightest: Reggie Bush, USC, 201 pounds; Brian Calhoun, Wisconsin, 201 pounds; Jerome Harrison, Washington St., 201 pounds

 

(Feb. 20, 2006) -- Over the past 10 drafts, 2,521 players have been selected from 254 schools. 13 schools have had 39 or more players selected.

 

1. Tennessee -- 64

2. Florida State -- 62

3. Ohio State -- 61

4. Miami (Fla.) -- 60

5. Florida -- 56

6. Nebraska -- 54

7. Georgia -- 51

8. Michigan -- 45

9. Notre Dame -- 44

10. Southern Cal -- 40

11. Texas A&M -- 40

12. Wisconsin -- 40

13. Oklahoma -- 39

 

These 13 schools account for 26.2 percent of all players drafted (656 of 2,521)

 

In the past ten drafts, there have been players from 44 different schools selected in the top ten picks of the draft. Texas (7) and Miami (7) have the most of any schools.

 

If you instead choose to weigh the higher draft picks, you change the results somewhat. If you take and assign a value to those picks as follows:

 

First 10 picks in draft -- 6 points

Next 20 (11-30) -- 5 points

Next 30 (31-60) -- 4 points

Next 40 (61-100) -- 3 points

Next 50 (101-150) -- 2 points

151-end of draft -- 1 point

 

then the results change to the following order.

 

1. Miami (Fla.) -- 60 players -- 205 points

2. Florida State -- 62 players -- 190 points

3. Ohio State -- 61 players -- 176 points

4. Tennessee -- 64 players -- 168 points

5. Florida -- 56 players -- 165 points

6. Georgia -- 51 players -- 149 points

7. Nebraska -- 54 players -- 133 points

8. Michigan -- 45 players -- 126 points

9. Southern Cal -- 40 players -- 121 points

10. Penn State -- 38 players -- 114 points

 

At the 2006 Combine, 18 schools will have six or more players attend the workouts.

 

1. Southern Cal -- 14

2. Ohio State -- 12

3. Miami (Fla.) -- 11

4. Auburn -- 9

5. Florida State -- 9

6. Virginia Tech -- 9

7. Georgia -- 8

8. Georgia Tech, LSU, NC State, Penn State, Tennessee and Wisconsin -- 7

14. Alabama, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas -- 6

 

Most players at Combine by conference

 

1. Atlantic Coast -- 61

2. Big Ten -- 50

3. Pac 10 -- 49

4. Southeastern -- 47

5. Big 12 -- 37

 

Players from 106 schools will be at the Combine. 22 of the 106 schools are non-Division 1A schools.

 

Did you know?

Since 2000 (six years), only 12 players have been selected on the first day of the draft that were not at the Combine, four second-rounders and eight third-rounders.

 

In 2004, Omar Jacobs' (Bowling Green) 41 touchdowns to four interceptions thrown was the best ratio in NCAA 1-A history.

 

Kellen Clemens (Oregon) is only the second quarterback in Oregon history to pass for more than 2,000 yards in his sophomore and junior seasons. Danny O'Neil is the other one (1992-1993).

 

Matt Leinart (Southern Cal) passed for 98 touchdowns in three years as a starting quarterback.

 

Reggie McNeal (Texas A&M) finished third in the 100 meters at the Texas state track meet in 2002.

 

Charlie Whitehurst's (Clemson) father David played seven years with the Green Bay Packers (1977-1983). His sister plays on the Clemson women's basketball team.

 

Jay Cutler (Vanderbilt) grew up in Santa Claus, Ind. and lived in a subdivision called Christmas Village.

 

Bruce Eugene (Grambling State) threw 50 touchdown pass and only six interceptions in 2005.

 

Bruce Gradkowski (Toledo) is the first player in NCAA Division 1-A history to complete more than 70 percent of his passes in consecutive seasons (2003 and 2004).

 

Brodie Croyle's (Alabama) father John played football for Alabama under Paul Bryant. His sister Reagan played basketball at Alabama and was Alabama homecoming queen in 2000.

 

Brad Smith (Missouri) is only the third player in NCAA Division 1A history to pass for 7,000 yards and rush for 3,500 yards (8,799 yards passing and 4,289 yards rushing). Antwaan Randle El and Josh Cribbs are the other two, and both are playing in the NFL. He was also the ONLY player in 1A history to throw for 8,000 and rush for 4,000

 

Vince Young (Texas) averaged over 20 points per game in his four-year career on his high school basketball team and was a member of two district champion 400-meter relay squads. At Texas, he completed 444 of 718 passes (61.8 percent).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Stl Bills for the distillation! I'm sure the folks who gather at Duffs for Bills games are proud of you!

 

However, it should be noted that any comparison which attempts to assign values to picks and then compiles results from multiple drafts has to be suspect for a variety of uses.

 

1. All drafts are not the same or equal and compilations end up weird-

 

Last year's draft was pretty weak from top to bottom in terms of strength of the players. This year's draft looks pretty deep at several positions. To assign a static point value to a particular round when it was already getting thin midway through the second round last year and when there should be some talented players available on day 2 this year cuts against multi-year compilations.

 

Picks 10-30 may be assigned a 5 and picks after #150 (or something like that) may be assigned a 2, but in years when there is a weak draft and some of the later picks are better players, compiling drafts looking at the quality of players produced gets fairly inaccurate fairly quickly.

 

2. All team needs are not the same-

 

The 2001 draft worked well for us because our needs, the needs of other teams and the draft pool lined up well. Thus we were able to trade down several positions into the low 20s and still get the first CB taken when we had a crying need for CB help.

 

Its hard to even do a simple static comparison within a draft because how it plays out for you depends so much on how your needs compare to that of others. TG clearly had faults and failing that led to him deserving to be fired. However, reading the market when it came to the draft was a strong part of his work.

 

Trading down our first pick in the 2001 draft and getting an extra pick he turned into Pro Bowler Henry and still getting the first CB taken in that draft was simply outstanding work. Reading the run on DL players in the 2003 draft and seeing he could take WM (which surprised all) and still get Kelsay with our 3nd oick was a great reading of the market. When you add to that we had the 23rd pick that year because he tagged PP and though he deserved to be canned for mishandling the HC hires, his ability to read and predict the market were great.

 

This factor needs to be thought about when figuring out a particular draft and is part of why any compilation is of limited use.

 

Still, these are interesting numbers for the limited purpose of comparing college teams to each other in terms of training players who get picked high. This factor can be compared across years because regardless of the talent level of the draft and given that on the whole variations in team need will be a wash, one can reasonably compare how the colleges are doing their job of training pro athletes (though actually even this is rediculous since their job should be to educate kids, but instead our society seems to place more value on being entertained by sports than it does on little things like educating our youth).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...