Kevin Seifert, ESPN Staff WriterNov 25, 2016, 07:30 AM ET
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- Kevin Seifert is a staff writer who covers the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL at ESPN. Kevin has covered the NFL for over 20 years, joining ESPN in 2008. He was previously a beat reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Washington Times. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia. You can follow him via Twitter @SeifertESPN.
In the event you hadn't heard, Rivalry Week is underway in college football. On Saturday, No. 2 Ohio State will host No. 3 Michigan (noon ET, ABC/ESPN App), and naturally, the only appropriate way to view the game is through an NFL prism.
The schools provide an outsized segment of the NFL population, even though -- gasp! -- neither plays in the SEC. As such, we thought it would be fun to take a deeper look at the numbers behind their success as NFL talent providers, with a couple massive assists from ESPN Stats & Information senior statistics analyst Jacob Nitzberg and the bottomless database at Pro Football Reference.
First, let's review the 2017 draft preview this game will provide. Michigan and Ohio State boast more than a dozen members of the top 150 draft prospects, as ranked by ESPN analyst Todd McShay. Keep in mind that the list includes underclassmen who might or might not declare.
As you can see below, Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh -- a former NFL player and coach -- has nearly triple the number of high-level 2017 prospects that Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer has. (Yes, Ohio State fans, we know many of your best players aren't draft-eligible yet, and you lost a truckload of talent to the pros last year.)
Michigan junior safety Jabrill Peppers is the highest-ranked prospect in this game (No. 4). Ohio State's top prospect, according to McShay, is cornerback Marshon Lattimore (No. 8).
Perhaps it's a cyclical thing. After all, Ohio State has produced twice as many first-round draft picks as Michigan since the common draft era began in 1967.
Full Ohio State and Michigan NFL breakdown
Ohio State's producing more than twice as many current NFL players as Michigan is a product of two factors: the Wolverines' talent slump prior to Harbaugh and Meyer's immediate success in recruiting and developing NFL talent since he arrived in Columbus four years ago.
Five Buckeyes were drafted in the first round last spring, the highest number from one school in 10 years. Overall, NFL teams drafted 12 players from Ohio State in 2016 -- tied for the second-most in the first seven rounds of a draft in the common era.
Below is a closer look at Meyer's success in getting players into the NFL while at Ohio State, beginning with the 2013 draft.
Ohio State draftees under Urban Meyer
Despite those numbers, Michigan has produced the two best NFL players from either school, based on Pro Football Reference's Approximate Value. The AV metric attaches a number to each player's NFL performance for the purpose of uniform comparison over time. Here is a more detailed explanation, but in essence, it gives us a way to examine quality apart from quantity.
The career AVs for quarterback Tom Brady and cornerback Charles Woodson both exceed the top ratings for Ohio State lineman Orlando Pace and receiver Paul Warfield. How's that for an old-school name drop?
Best NFL players from rivalry, according to AV metric Pace and Warfield are both members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Brady and Woodson almost certainly will get in during their first year of eligibility. Overall, Ohio State has a slight edge in producing Hall of Fame players who spent their entire college careers at one school. When you count players or coaches who have partial ties to each school, Ohio State can boast 10 connections to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, while Michigan has eight. Only Notre Dame (13) and Southern California (12) have more than the Buckeyes. Any way you look at it, these schools are two of the most historic and reliable NFL talent pipelines in the country.
