Winners and losers from the 2020 NFL Draft — Kentucky edition
Here is who is up and who is down — from a (mostly) commonwealth of Kentucky perspective — following the 2020 NFL Draft:
Up: Kentucky Wildcats football. After having five players drafted in 2019, UK saw star playmaker Lynn Bowden go to the Las Vegas Raiders in round three and offensive guard Logan Stenberg to the Detroit Lions in round four of this year’s draft.
With seven players chosen in the past two drafts, UK has its best two-year performance since 1993 (four) and 1994 (three).
Among universities/colleges in Kentucky, UK had the most players drafted — Kentucky two, Louisville one, everybody else zero — for the second straight year.
This is the first time the Wildcats program has led the state in NFL Draft picks outright in back-to-back years in the 21st century.
Down: Western Kentucky Hilltoppers football. The little engine that could, WKU led the state in NFL Draft choices in 2016 and tied for first in 2017. From 2016to 2018, Western had seven players drafted, compared to UK’s one.
However, in the 2020 NFL Draft, no WKU player heard his name called. It is the second straight year that has been the case.
Up: UK’s “Big Blue Wall.” With Stenberg taken in the draft one year after offensive tackle George Asafo-Adjei went in the seventh round to the New York Giants, UK has now had offensive linemen chosen in back-to-back drafts for the first time since 1979 (Dan Fowler) and 1980 (Tom Kearns).
After going from 1993 (Todd Perry, Chuck Bradley) to 2013 (Larry Warford) without ever having an offensive lineman drafted, Kentucky has now had three chosen since 2013.
UK offensive line coach John Schlarman’s “Big Blue Wall” could have multiple draft picks in 2021. Of four returning starters, three will be seniors: tackle Landon Young; guard Luke Fortner and center Drake Jackson; and junior-to-be tackle Darian Kinnard will be draft-eligible after next season.
Down: The SEC. The Southeastern Conference had a whopping 15 players chosen in the first round Thursday night. It again showed its overall superiority by leading all leagues with 63 total picks.
For the second straight year, every SEC school but one (this year it was Mississippi; last year, Tennessee) had at least one player chosen.
So how was the Southeastern Conference “down”?
The total of 63 SEC players chosen this year was one fewer than 2019. The SEC’s margin over the runner-up Big Ten in total players chosen declined from plus-24 (64-40) in 2019 to plus-15 (63-48) in 2020.
Up: Louisville Cardinals football. When the New York Jets took mammoth tackle Mekhi Becton (6-foot-7, 364 pounds) with the 11th pick of the first round, it was the eighth U of L player taken in the first round since 2014.
Down: Louisville Cardinals football: Becton was the only U of L player picked (ex-Cardinals edge rusher Jonathan Greenard, who used the graduate transfer rule to play his final college season at Florida, went in the third round to the Houston Texans).
Louisville led the state or tied for the lead in number of players drafted in four of five years from 2014 through 2018. The Cardinals have now trailed UK the past two drafts.
Up: Lafayette High School. After becoming an All-America offensive tackle playing for Nick Saban at Alabama, ex-Generals star Jedrick Wills was the overall No. 10 draftee, chosen by the Cleveland Browns.
Wills is the first product of Kentucky high school football to go in the first round since ex-Ballard and U of L wide receiver DeVante Parker went No. 14 to Miami in 2015.
As best as I can tell, Wills is only the second player who played high school football in Lexington to go in the first round of the NFL Draft. The other was running back George Adams, the ex-UK star, who went No. 19 overall to the New York Giants in 1985.
Like Wills, Adams is a Lafayette alumnus.
(If you are wondering, Pro Football Hall of Famer Dermontti Dawson, a Bryan Station product, went in the second round in 1988).
Down: UK recruiting class ratings correlating with NFL Draft selections. Of the eight recruiting classes signed so far by Mark Stoops as Kentucky coach, the most-ballyhooed came in 2014.
That class was ranked No. 17 in the country by Rivals and it featured 10 four-star recruits.
Conversely, the lowest-ranked of Stoops’ UK recruiting classes was the following year. The class of 2015 was ranked No. 35 in the country and included only two four-star recruits.
So, you want to guess which Stoops recruiting class has so far produced the most NFL Draft picks?
Yep, the lowest-rated class. Stenberg joined fellow 2015 recruits Josh Allen (first round, 2019) and Asafo-Adjei (seventh round, 2019) to give that class three draft picks.
Meanwhile, the lavishly-praised 2014 class yielded one draftee — safety Mike Edwards (third round, 2019).
Moral of the story: A class’s recruiting ranking is not preordained to be its NFL Draft destiny.
