The Big 12 isn’t expected to have a first-round NFL Draft pick ... again
The Big 12 produced at least one first-round NFL Draft pick every year from its formation in 1996 until last year’s draft. The 2021 NFL Draft came and went without a single player from the league hearing his name called on Day 1.
The Big 12 was the first power conference not to have a first-round pick since the Big East in 2006. Well, unfortunately for the Big 12, that dubious distinction doesn’t look like it’ll be going away.
The Big 12 is projected to be shut out of the first-round of the 2022 NFL Draft once again. The draft is unpredictable by nature, so things can change, but most don’t view the Big 12 as having a first-round selection when it takes place in two weeks.
ESPN’s senior NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. does not have a Big 12 player projected in the first round of his latest mock draft. Neither does The Athletic’s NFL Draft guru Dane Brugler.
“I don’t really even think about that during the process because you’re evaluating individual players,” Kiper said on a teleconference Thursday. “When I start thinking about it is when the draft is over. You go back and you recap everything and you say, ‘Wow, how’d the conferences do?’ I always mark that down — which conference, which school has the most first rounders, second rounders. You’re right it worked out that way again where the (Big 12’s) talent level wasn’t (up there).”
But Kiper and Brugler both said the Big 12 has plenty of NFL-caliber talent. It’s just not the premium talent that teams are searching for in the first round.
Iowa State running back Breece Hall, for instance, has first-round talent. However, NFL teams have shied away from drafting running backs in the first round in recent years. It’s simply a position that isn’t valued as highly as a quarterback, offensive tackle, wide receiver, cornerback or defensive end.
“Breece Hall is a first-round caliber player. He’s just a running back,” Kiper said. “He could possibly be a late (first-round pick). I don’t think so, but he could possibly be in the late first. He’d be the only one (from the Big 12).”
Kiper has Baylor safety Jalen Pitre being the Big 12’s first player off the board, going early in the second round to the New York Giants (36th overall). He projects Hall to land with the New York Jets at 38th overall.
Brugler, meanwhile, has projected Hall as the 43rd overall pick in the second round to the Atlanta Falcons. He has Pitre going 46th overall to the Minnesota Vikings.
Kiper and Brugler also have Oklahoma defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey projected as a second-round pick.
For the Big 12, it’s a fall from where the league was just a few years ago. Oklahoma produced back-to-back No. 1 overall picks in Baker Mayfield (2018) and Kyler Murray (2019). The conference had five players taken in the first round of the 2020 draft, including TCU wide receiver Jalen Reagor and TCU cornerback Jeff Gladney.
The lack of a first-round pick doesn’t mean the Big 12 lacks talent, though, as Kiper and Brugler said.
“It’s just the lack of premium talent that the Big 12 is struggling with right now,” Brugler said. “They will be well represented throughout the draft, but probably not in the first round.”
This story was originally published April 14, 2022 at 1:51 PM.
