VARSITY NUMBERS: Projections And Whatnot

Following up on this week's second-draft F/+ projections, I wrote about what's left to add to the official projections, and who it might effect, today at Football Outsiders.

Draft Points

This is a concept I originally discussed in Varsity Numbers in 2010. [...]

The idea is that some lost starters mean more than others, and while there is not a perfect correlation between the perceived quality of a player getting drafted highly (or at all) and the quality of that player in college, there is obviously a strong enough correlation to use this. We will see if the points I defined in that article are still best for use, but this will be factored in to some degree.

Who This May Help: Oklahoma, Oregon. Oklahoma is not projected to have anybody selected in the first round of the draft, though Ronnell Lewis may be close. In all, they have only two or three players that may be drafted at all. Meanwhile, Oregon might see LaMichael James (second or third round) and Cliff Harris (later) drafted. Of the projected top-five teams, the Sooners and Ducks will have the fewest players drafted by far.

Who This May Hurt: Stanford, Baylor, Oklahoma State. As much as anybody else, these three teams took hefty steps forward in recent years, spurred mostly by players that are expected to be taken quite high in this month's draft. Stanford could not only see Andrew Luck go No. 1, but they could see two offensive linemen -- David DeCastro and Jonathan Martin -- gone by the end of the first round. Baylor will have both Robert Griffin III and Kendall Wright plucked on the first day. Oklahoma State should see Justin Blackmon gone in the first five to seven picks, followed by Brandon Weeden in the first few rounds. None of these teams are expected to have double-digit players drafted, but these players were difference makers, and this will ding them regardless.