🏈 Tracking the underclassmen: Close to 40 percent don't hear their name called at 2014 NFL Draft

[BAMANEWSBOT]

Nick Saban started beating the drum in January.

Four months later and just one hour before the start of the 2014 NFL Draft, the Alabama coach harped once again on a trend that bothered him for multiple reasons.

A fourth consecutive year with a record number of underclassmen declaring for the draft didn't sit well with the former NFL coach. From both angles, he didn't see anything to like about it.

"The thing that scares me the most about this is there may be 30 or more players this year because there are so many players that don't even have the opportunity to make the team," Saban said Thursday. "It's not only not good for them, it's not really good for the league and the NFL and it's not really good for college football, either. I think we're all losing if we continue to promote guys who aren't high draft picks to go out for the draft early."

Turns out, that number of undrafted underclassmen was even higher than Saban anticipated.

Of the 98 underclassmen who declared for the draft, 36 went unselected. Tack on the two players who graduated but left a year of eligibility on the table -- Alabama'sAdrian Hubbard and USC's Dion Bailey -- and the total grows to 38.

Half of the first-round picks, including the top four and six of the top 10, were underclassmen. Eighteen came off the board in the second round. Day 3, though, was almost exclusively filled with players who used up all of their college eligibility before entering the draft. Only 22 were selected in the fourth-seventh rounds.

Nine of the 38 came from the SEC.

Here's the full breakdown. Asterisks denote that a player graduated but had one year of eligibility remaining.

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

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[psychojoe]

CNS is right, as usual. Pagan is one who jumped put at me who should have come back. Absent some urgent need for a paycheck, he stood to move up in the draft by coming back for that last year. Hubbard is puzzling to mw. There were reports that he would go out for the 2013 draft, but he came back, then went out with a year of eligibility left. IMO he was not drafted because he lacked explosive moves as a pass rusher. Personally, I think there is something we don't know about that led to Sunseri opting for the draft. Good luck to these guys and all our draftees and UFAs as they work to make a team.