NFL Draft Takes Most Early Talent from LSU, Bama

While college seniors prepare for graduation in the coming weeks, the following student-athletes chose to instead enter this week’s NFL draft before their senior year of college football. We took a look at the teams hurt the most by talented players leaving early.

We calculated 25 points for losing a player who would be one of the first few picks, all the way down to 2 points for a player who left early but might not even be drafted. Admittedly I go into more detail on the student-athletes leaving early for the NBA draft and the projections for all remaining players and their teams (click here), but the NHL, baseball and NBA drafts are not until June so here is the focus on this week’s NFL draft.

The hardest hit team was LSU, which loses running back Derrius Guice (23 of 25 possible points), defensive backs Donte Jackson and Kevin Toliver (20 and 19), linebacker Arden Key (18), center Will Clapp (C) and then some minor players in Toby Weathersby and Travonte Valentine (tackle and nose tackle both worth two points). All together, that tallies 100 points even.

We list LSU’s players first on the table below, and then we list the rest of the teams who lost someone early to the draft in alphabetical order. This worked out nicely because Alabama appears first alphabetically and happens to also be the second hardest hit with 87 points lost between five players.

However, you will have to scroll down alphabetically to see the next three hardest hit in Texas, Stanford and Ohio State. I will actually be on Ohio State’s campus for graduation weekend due to working on a redistricting ballot measure in the state for www.takeback.org – which has more student signups there than on any other campus. We will keep updates coming at www.pudnersports.com.