Robert Wilson said:
Final Tally:
2021 NFL Draft by conference
- SEC -- 65
- Big Ten -- 44
- ACC -- 42
- Pac-12 -- 28
- Big 12 -- 22
- AAC -- 19
- Independent -- 15
- Conference USA -- 5
- FCS -- 5
- MAC -- 4
- Mountain West -- 3
- Sun Belt -- 3
- Divisions II/III -- 4
Doesn't help that we only have 10 teams, but even if you weight it, we are still behind. Bottom line, we have a # of conference members in talent poor states. Baylor has also stopped pulling its weight as of late. Hopefully we will turn that around quickly.
This. The core issues are:
1. Quantity of membership is too low.
2. Quantity of conference games is too high.
3. The lack of geographic diversity of membership causes cannabalization between members in regard to recruiting the same recruits.
4. The lack of NFL development.
5. The lack of control of Texas due to the loss of Texas A&M.
6. The conference lacks a recruiting upper middle class unlike every other conference.
7. The conference lacks meaningful out of conference annual rivalries outside of Iowa State v. Iowa.
In regard to 3 and 5, the combination of the elevation of TCU to the Big 12, the rise of Baylor and Oklahoma State to mid-tier P5 status in the late 2000-2010 decade, and the loss of Texas A&M to the SEC (and the associated Texas recruits that now choose Texas A&M for that reason) directly led to the fall of Texas Tech from the upper middle class of the P5. The end result is good in the sense that now that TCU, Baylor, and Oklahoma State are now all mid-range P5 programs that occasionally have good years when they previously were not in that category, but the result is also bad in that Texas Tech has fallen from where it was to being in that group.