These College Football Programs Are the Modern ‘U’ for Each Position
Sports Illustrated determined the U. at each position by measuring what every college should strive to do, in sports and beyond: Prepare students for professional careers.
In order to make it modern, SI used a 10-year data set. Dipping further back would mean going across different coaching eras at the college level, as well as including a lot of players who are no longer active in the NFL. (They did run an unofficial 20-year data set for the quarterback position, which you can read about below.)
SI came up with a scoring system that balanced not just the quantity of players programs put into the NFL, but the quality of those players' careers. One measure SI used is draft position—an inexact but still relevant measure of a player's approximate value when he left college. SI credited players for career games started. But rather than assigning a point value to every game started, which would weigh too heavily in favor of older players, SI lessened that effect by using ranges.
SI also awarded points for the highest achievements (MVP, and for non-quarterbacks, Offensive/Defensive Player of the Year and All-Pro) and awarded a smaller amount of credit for Rookie of the Year, an indication of a player's preparedness when entering the league. (SI made the decision to exclude the Pro Bowl. Between fan voting and the league's need to dig deep into the pool of alternates with so many players dropping out annually, there's been a reduction in the legitimacy of that achievement.)
For all positions in this series, scoring is based on alumni who entered the NFL between 2010 and 2019 and were either (1) drafted or (2) undrafted but appeared in at least one game. Players who transferred during their college careers are counted only as part of the last program they played for. Players are only credited for the position at which they were drafted. Our full scoring system is at the bottom of this article.
Be sure to check out the full article by clicking here.
