The Blue Board

Good stuff Steve.

The list is terrible. Why should draft position mean anything? IMO, you have to look at QBs with post season success first and then it goes to starters and then backups. How could you not have Tennessee even mentioned? Why is Michigan so low? (I don't care where Brady was drafted). Pudue should be on the list. Stanford with two legit starters should be higher up. Where's Delaware (Flacco and Pat Devlin)?

IMO, "position U" should, without exception, always refer to college production, not NFL production. This site (along with the fan passion) is about college football after all. You could use draft selection as a very small piece of the equation, but it shouldn't be the be all/end all of debate. After all, some successful college QB's will not be or have not been drafted high because they don't have the prototypical size or fit the prototypical scheme that most NFL teams run.
That said, without any doubt in my mind, USC is QB U. They've had great production from their guys.

What did you expect from Stevie-Buckeye? I guess that 2 full years of starting, 2 bowl victories and being a captain means nothing. I wonder what he would have said about Brady if he had some leaf stickers on his helmet?

Those schools that I mentioned... their QBs had stellar college careers as well.

As we know, there isn't much to expect from olta.. Steve.

I think the point of the article is to illustrate which schools have in the recent past done a great job of grooming quarterbacks for the next level.

When you think about recruiting and tie everything we do and think about back to that, THAT is the main determining factor a quarterback (or any prospect) is looking at in making his decision.

As I got into it, I noticed how many guys who played in 2012 were drafted in the top 3 rounds. There are outliers like Brady and Romo. But most of the truly successful QBs in the business today were top-3 round draft picks.

Out of 32 teams, 3 of them (49ers, Jaguars and Titans) had two guys who split time. That meant there were 35 regular QBs in the league this year. 30 of those 35 were taken in the first 3 rounds.

So I used that as first parameter. Then I looked at guys taken first round and first overall to break any ties.

Certainly, you could look at stats (college or pro) or wins or titles or anything else to draw some conclusions. But everything is so spread out. On that list of 35 guys who played regularly in 2012, USC had 3 guys (Palmer, Sanchez and Cassel) and Michigan had 2 (Brady, Henne ... who split time with Gabbert) and Boston College had 2 (Ryan and Hasselbeck ... who split time with Locker with Titans). That was it nobody else had more than 1 QB who was a regular in the NFL this year.

There is very little opinion involved in this in analysis. I let the draft positions speak for themselves (otherwise, how would you explain Tulane?). It's like a 15-foot putt, you could look at it from 10 different directions if you wanted to.

I'd go with the opinion that USC, Michigan, Oregon, Georgia and a few others have done the best job overall in the last 15 years or so.

And one other point ...

The reason why draft position is SO IMPORTANT tying it back to recruiting and development is that's how these guys get paid. The higher the draft status, the more money they make in their initial contract.

Let's think about that for a second ...

Look at Leinart, certainly you'd say for a first-round guy he doesn't have much to show for his 7-year NFL career. But he got a big deal coming out. My guess is he will make more money as a pro than a guy like, say, Fitzpatrick who is only now going to get paid.

Yes, the second contract (after 3-4 years in the league) is when the bigger money ($8-10 million a year can come in). But you have to get the first contract and redeem yourself first. The higher you are drafted, the more likely a team is to rush you into production. That's why Luck and Matty Ice and a few others will explode on the second contract .... they were taken so high they had to play day one and they exploded.

So that's more of my thinking on this analysis. I weighed the draft status higher because the higher you're drafted, the more opp you have and more you will make inititally ... and that's what the high end high school kids are ultimately looking at too.

Not sure I'd agree, but I think that (plus the recent vs. traditional debate) is at the heart of nearly every "position U" discussion.

I view it in terms of the LB U designation. From what I understand, people used it significantly back in the day to refer to Penn State as the place NFL teams looked to for linebackers because they produced so well in the NFL. That's why I would personally include NFL production.

Yep. The same reason Miami got tagged as NFL U.

So if it's about "recruiting," shouldn't it factor both college and pro into it?

If a coach tells a recruit - "Our school produced Tom Brady" vs. "Our school produced number 1 pick [insert huge bust]," which do you think will hold more weight? Kids are blinded by the huge name, so any superstar NFL player should really bump a team up in these rankings - Tennessee (Manning), Michigan (Brady), Cal (Rodgers), OM (Eli) and Purdue (Brees).

JMO, but I think that really trumps high draft picks (especially second and third rounders) with respect to recruiting.

Edited well before you commented.