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 Friday, December 13, 2002
Draft proves why Miami was No. 1
By Terry Bowden
Special to ABC Sports Online
When it comes to the NFL Draft, everybody seems to be focused on which NFL teams got whom, and if this will get them one step closer to the Super Bowl. But as a college football analyst, I would much rather look at the draft and find out what it tells about last year's football season. I've always said you win championships in college with a talented senior class, and I would have to say that this year's draft bears that fact out.
Using my own special Power Point System, here's a look at my Top 20 teams in the draft and see what this tells us about this past college football season.
| School |
Final '01 ranking |
No. drafted |
*Bowden's PPS |
| 1. Miami |
1 |
11 |
52 |
| 2. Tennessee |
4 |
10 |
42 |
| 3. Florida |
3 |
8 |
38 |
| 4. Ohio State |
NR |
8 |
31 |
| 5. Georgia |
25 |
8 |
28 |
| 6. Oregon |
2 |
6 |
25 |
| (tie) 7. UCLA |
NR |
6 |
24 |
| (tie) 7. South Carolina |
13 |
5 |
24 |
| 9. Colorado |
9 |
5 |
23 |
| 10. North Carolina |
NR |
6 |
21 |
| 11. Virginia Tech |
18 |
8 |
20 |
| 12. Michigan State |
NR |
5 |
20 |
| (tie) 13. Kansas State |
NR |
7 |
19 |
| (tie) 13. LSU |
8 |
5 |
19 |
| (tie) 15. Notre Dame |
NR |
6 |
18 |
| (tie) 15. Stanford |
17 |
6 |
18 |
| 17. BYU |
24 |
5 |
17 |
| (tie) 18. Nebraska |
7 |
4 |
16 |
| (tie) 18. Arizona State |
NR |
4 |
16 |
| (tie) 18. Wisconsin |
NR |
4 |
16 |
| (tie) 18. Washington |
19 |
3 |
16 |
Explaining the Bowden Power Point System:
First of all, let me explain to you how the Power Point System works. Because a player who is selected in the first round is expected to be a better pro than one selected in the fifth or seventh round, I have used a power rating to compare the relative strengths of these different selections. Thus, a player selected in the first round is worth seven points, a second-round selection is worth six, etc. down the line with a player picked in the seventh round worth one point.
The five players Miami had selected in the first round would obviously be better, for example, than the five players Kansas State had picked in the sixth and seventh round.
|  | | Phillip Buchanan and his Miami teammates were in a class by themselves. |
Therefore, it's not hard to see why Miami won the national championship. Prior to last season, I felt that the Hurricanes had more NFL-caliber athletes than any other team in the country. And they did. Because they were so much more talented than everyone else, they practically ran away with the Sears Trophy.
What is also very interesting is that if you look at three of the top four teams in the final ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll (Miami, Florida and Tennessee), they all were in the top four in the NFL Draft rankings. And No. 2 Oregon had a top-6 draft ranking to go along with that.
Like I said before, you win with football players.
Now let's look a little deeper into the NFL Draft and see if there are any other tidbits of information we can come up with.
If anyone was wondering why Florida State dropped out of the top-5 for the first time in 14 years, you need not look past the draft. The Seminoles had merely two players drafted, which has to be one of the worst showings in the history of the Bobby Bowden era.
I also wonder about Ohio State. Although new head coach Jim Tressel did show the Buckeye fans that he knew how to beat Michigan, he took the fourth-ranked talent in the country and ended the season unranked. And the Georgia Bulldogs, although finishing the regular season at No. 25, fell well below where their fifth-ranked talent suggests they should have been.
Texas and Oklahoma are another couple of interesting stories. They ended up ranked fifth and sixth in last year's final Coaches' Poll, yet both teams had just two players drafted. And neither teams' NFL classes even made it into my Top 20. While this might suggest to some that there is a lot of overachieving going on with both clubs, in reality, head coaches Mack Brown and Bob Stoops haven't been there long enough to have had a strong senior class. Watch out for these two teams in the near future.
Another interesting group is Maryland, Washington State and Illinois, who finished the year ranked 10th-12th, respectively. You have to wonder if this is an indication of not only a fantastic turnaround, but also of great things to come in the future. The problem is none of these three teams had a top-20 draft day, which suggests to me that the talent level is not all that much different than it was when they were losing. Because of this, the jury is still out as to whether these three 10-win seasons was anything more than a Cinderella story.
Has anyone else noticed that Stanford and Notre Dame both had six players drafted, both had 18 power points and ended up tied for 15th in my draft rankings? Yet, when last season ended, Stanford was 9-3 and ranked 17th, while ND was unranked with a losing record. The only difference I can see is head coach Tyrone Willingham.
Of course, there are other factors involving winning football games, such as strength-of-schedule and injuries, but it still holds true that if you have the best talent on the field, you are likely going to win.
Stay tuned Tuesday to find out how the conferences ranked.
ABC college football analyst Terry Bowden reports regularly during the offseason on college football for ABC Sports Online.
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