Cincinnati added not only a familiar weapon, but one with a great name.

One of the most unique parts of the 2021 NFL Draft was the reuniting of college teammates in the passing game. The Cincinnati Bengals drafted LSU quarterback Joe Burrow first overall last season; holding the 5th overall selection this year, Burrow was rumored to be pushing his organization to draft his former teammate, Tigers WR Ja’Marr Chase. The Bengals did in fact pull the trigger on Chase, making them the extremely rare combination of quarterback and receiver to get drafted out of the same college and to the same team in the first round in back to back years.

But it didn’t stop there.  With the very next pick, Miami drafted Alabama WR Jaylen Waddle, a year after drafting Crimson Tide quarterback Tua Tagovailoa with the fifth overall pick.  But it didn’t stop there: Alabama WR DeVonta Smith was selected by the Eagles with the 10th overall pick, and that reunites him with Jalen Hurts, the Eagles starting quarterback and a member of the 2017 and 2018 Crimson Tide teams.

That made me wonder: what is the record for most touchdowns by a quarterback and receiver in the NFL among those teammates who also played together in college?

The answer is 26, and I think you could probably win $20 in every bar in the country with this one. Tobin Rote and Billy Howton were teammates on the 1949 Rice Owls team that finished 10-1 and won the Cotton Bowl. Green Bay drafted Rote with the 17th pick in the 1950 Draft, and two years later, selected Howton 15th overall. The two would find immediate success, as Howton led the NFL in receiving yards his rookie season. They would connect for 26 touchdowns together as pros, the mark that Burrow and Chase, among others, will be chasing. ^[1]Hey, don’t count out Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne, either!

Two other quarterback/receiver pairings had 16 touchdowns. In 1971, Stanford’s Jim Plunkett was the first overall pick in the NFL Draft to the Patriots. Over 400 picks later, the Rams drafted his top weapon in 1970, wide receiver Randy Vataha. Los Angeles cut Vataha before the start of the season, but the Patriots picked him up, and Plunkett and Vataha connected for 9 touchdowns as rookies.

At Provo in 1977, BYU quarterback Marc Wilson and running back Todd Christensen helped BYU generate a high-powered offensive attack. In ’78, Christensen was selected by the Cowboys with the 56th pick to play fullback; he didn’t work out there or with the Giants, but resurrected his career at tight end with Oakland in the ’80s. Meanwhile, in 1980, the Raiders drafted Wilson with the 15th overall pick; together, Wilson and Christensen connected for 16 touchdowns, which made Christensen the top overall target for Wilson in his career (as for Christensen, he caught 20 touchdowns from Plunkett).

There have been some other notable combinations. In the late ’50s, Butch Songin and Jim Colclough were teammates at Boston College; perhaps unsurprisingly, the AFL’s Boston Patriots snatched them both up, and they connected for 14 touchdowns. More recently, Stanford teammates Andrew Luck and Coby Fleener were drafted by Indianapolis in 2012, and they scored 14 times through the air. In the early ’90s, Michigan quarterback Elvis Grbac and wide receiver Derrick Alexander were stars, and led the ’92 team to an undefeated season. They would be reunited at the end of the decade in Kansas City and combined for 13 touchdowns.

Vanderbilt’s Jay Cutler and Earl Bennett were reunited in Chicago and produced 11 touchdown receptions, while Jim Plunkett and Gene Washington hit on 10 touchdown passes in 1976 and 1977 for San Francisco.

The previous record for players from one conference getting selected in first round of an NFL Draft was 12, set by the ACC in 2006 and matched by the SEC in both 2013 and 2017. ^[1]If you wanted to be cheekyy, and I would expect nothing less out of you, the schools in the current SEC also had 13 players drafted in 2011… when there were 10 players from the SEC drafted in … Continue reading For as long as I can remember — and, assuredly, for longer than that — SEC fans have boasted about the football talent within its conference. At times, the reputation has exceeded the results. But in recent years, there’s no question that the draft has become dominated by the conference. How much more dominant is the SEC at the top of the NFL Draft relative to prior years?

Before we answer that, a brief technical note. We should note that conference has had two rounds of expansion in the modern era. Arkansas and South Carolina joined the SEC in 1992, with the Razorbacks coming from the SWC and the Gamecocks previously being independent. In 2012, Texas A&M and Missouri joined the conference, with both schools leaving behind the Big 12. So Ryan Tannehill never played a down in the SEC, but he played for a school now within that conference.

To measure SEC dominance in the NFL Draft, I looked at the first 32 picks ^[2]To control for years where there were fewer than 32 NFL teams. in each draft since 1967 (the beginning of the common draft). To keep the analysis in each Draft consistent — i.e., by looking at 14 schools each year — I recorded (1) how many players came from SEC schools, and (2) how many players came from Arkansas, South Carolina, Missouri, and Texas A&M in years where those schools were not in the SEC. The results are graphed below; the players from SEC schools are in blue, and I have added on top the players from non-SEC schools at the time that are now in the conference. As you can see, the SEC dominance is to some extent a modern phenomenon.

Here’s how that compares to the Big 10 — using the same criteria for including schools that were not always in the conference. As you can see, in recent years, the SEC has begun to pull away.

So what has been driving the increase in SEC players going to the NFL. Much of the reason is a change in culture and society that has made black athletes choose to attend the SEC instead of historically black colleges or other schools. During the 12-year period from 1967 to 1978, there were 59 players drafted — that’s about 6 per year — from schools that are not currently in major college football (i.e., the FBS). That includes 5 players from Grambling State like Frank Lewis of the Steelers that, had they been born 25 years later, might have decided to attend LSU. There are also 5 players from Jackson State like Walter Payton who might have attended Ole Miss or MSU, 7 players from Tennessee State like Too Tall Jones and Claude Humphrey that could have been Vols, and 4 players from Texas Southern (notably, Julius Adams and Ken Burrough) who might now be Aggies.  And schools like Texas A&M didn’t begin admitting black students until the ’60s, much less openly recruiting them, leaving guys like Gene Upshaw and several other first rounders to opt for schools like Texas A&I (now part of Texas A&M-Kingsville).

And, of course, this is to say nothing of players like Lionel Antoine, the third overall pick in the 1972 Draft. Antoine was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, making it about a two-to-four hour drive to get to Baton Rouge, Auburn, Tuscaloosa, or Starkville. Antoine chose to go to … Southern Illinois.  Or the overlooked players of yesteryear who might now have attended a major SEC school and become a high draft pick.  Isiah Robertson was a standout linebacker born in New Orleans who went to… Southern University in Baton Rouge.  Do you think he’d go there now, or LSU? Robertson still was dominant enough to be the 10th pick in the 1971 Draft, which is better than two of his Hall of Fame teammates at Southern.  Playing on defense with Robertson was Mel Blount, born in Vidalia, Georgia, who was a 3rd round pick in 1970. And in the same draft as Robertson was Harold Carmichael, born in Jacksonville — halfway between UF and UGA — who fell to the 7th round after his career at Southern.

So yes, the SEC now dominates the modern NFL Draft.  The reason why this hasn’t been the case for decades is a bit more complicated.