If you are not a Third Round Pick or higher, STAY IN SCHOOL College KIDS
I have a problem every year trying to explain this to kids, but I am telling you they don’t listen. Stop letting an agent tell you, that you are a draft pick. Stop letting your family members tell you things, because if it does not work out, you are going to mess up your future.
I have to send this message out to my football players that follow us. We love to help out football players, and we have nothing against these guys who came out early, but I think it is very important to point out when something is not going well for a person.
Last year 98 underclassmen left early for the NFL Draft. Of those 98, 38 of them were not selected (List Below). What does that mean? That means that 38 players were told information, or made a decision to leave early based on what they were hearing or what they were reading on the internet.
If you can listen to one thing I write, I hope you read and understand this. They have a draft board that you can submit your name too. You send in your name to the NFL Draft Advisory Board, and they will tell you where they think you are projected. So I want you to know what the NFL Draft Advisory Board is, so here you go:
When is the cutoff date for a player to submit his name to the committee?
The league prefers that they get the names from the schools by mid-December so that they can do a proper evaluation. If the league receives names after mid-December they will still try and do an evaluation but it may not be a complete evaluation.
How many players get evaluated?
In the past, there have been approximately 140-150 players a year that ask for an evaluation. The average number of underclassmen who end up declaring for the draft is usually between 40 -50, but obviously that went up last year by double. Every year there are players who do not go through the league evaluation process and just enter the draft. Some of the players who do it this way end up finding out on draft day that they weren’t as highly thought of as some “experts” may have told them.
Who oversees the committee?
The NFL Player Personnel Department, headed by Joel Bussert, oversees the College Advisory Committee.
So what does this tell you? It says to submit your name to the NFL Draft Advisory Board. This is something that is mandatory if you are a junior and are considering leaving college early. If the results come back and say you are a 3rd round pick or higher, then by all means enter the NFL Draft. If they say a 5th round pick, that does not mean you are a 5th round pick.
Remember how a big board works. If it says you are a 5th rounder, that means your name is on the teams Draft Board on the fifth round. We can say you are the first person in the 5th round. When they get to the 5th round, if they have players on their board who are considered a 3rd rounder, who do you think they will draft? Listen kids, think about it. 99 percent of the time the team is going to select a player that is a 3rd rounder on their board before the 5th rounder. That ultimately will bump you to the 6th round, GET IT?
So here is a list of guys that went undrafted this year, not to criticize them but to let you know there is a process in place to help you from going undrafted.
Undrafted underclassmen
DB Nick Addison – Bethune-Cookman
RB George Atkinson – Notre Dame
**S Dion Bailey – USC
RB Kapri Bibbs – Colorado State
RB Brendan Bigelow – California
WR Chris Boyd – Vanderbilt
WR Brandon Coleman – Rutgers
RB Isaiah Crowell – Alabama State
WR Austin Franklin – New Mexico State
DT Carlos Gray – North Carolina State
TE Xavier Grimble – USC
T Terrance Hackney – Bethune-Cookman
CB Vic Hampton – South Carolina
**LB Adrian Hubbard – Alabama
CB Kameron Jackson – California
TE Nic Jacobs – McNeese State
DT Anthony Johnson – LSU
RB Henry Josey – Missouri
TE A.C. Leonard – Tennessee State
DB Albert Louis-Jean – Boston College
TE Colt Lyerla – Oregon
DE Chris McCain – California
DT Viliami Moala – California
RB Adam Muema – San Diego State
TE Jake Murphy – Utah
CB Loucheiz Purifoy – Florida
DL Kelcy Quarles – South Carolina
RB Darrin Reaves – UAB
OL Antonio Richardson – Tennessee
CB Marcus Roberson – Florida
QB Brett Smith – Wyoming
RB Jerome Smith – Syracuse
WR Willie Snead – Ball State
RB John Spooney – Brown
WR Josh Stewart – Oklahoma State
DL George Uko – USC
FS Pierre Warren – Jacksonville State
RB James Wilder Jr. – Florida State
NFL Draft Diamonds was created to assist the underdogs playing the sport. We call them diamonds in the rough. My name is Damond Talbot, I have worked extremely hard to help hundreds of small school players over the past several years, and will continue my mission. We have several contributors on this site, and if they contribute their name and contact will be in the piece above. You can email me at nfldraftdiamonds@gmail.com