NFL Draft: Which college football powerhouse is First Pick U?

There’s only one player each year that can claim to be the first pick in the NFL Draft, but do they typically come from one powerhouse?

With the NFL draft only weeks away we’ve been talking a lot about which colleges have produced the most NFL superstars, but just to keep things simple we narrowed the scope of this discussion all the way down to the very first pick.

That begs the question, which school produces the most first overall selections in the NFL draft? Who truly is, First Pick U?

Let’s take a look at the chart below where you’ll find the schools that have produced at least two or more first picks in the NFL draft.

Perhaps it’s fitting that the USC Trojans and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame are considered one of the biggest rivalries in the history of college football as the two universities have not only proven to be perennial contributors to the NFL for as long as the league has been in existence, but the two schools are also apparently tied for producing the most first picks.  USC also happens to be the only team to ever account for the first selection back to back years – with Ron Yary in 1968 and OJ Simpson in 1969.

That said, the Fighting Irish and the Trojans aren’t the only nemeses to appear on the chart with the Red River Rivalry accounting for seven of the first overall selections.  Currently, the Sooners are standing strong with four, which gives them just one more than the Longhorns, but with the way things have been going lately with Oklahoma’s Heisman Trophy streak, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them create an even larger gap between themselves and their arch-rivals from Austin.

Speaking of Heisman Trophy winners, there’s been a total of twenty-one selected as the first pick in the NFL draft history, with Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield being the most recent example just last year.

Considering how much the Arizona Cardinals would benefit from having a quarterback like Kyler Murray it’s well within the realm of possibilities that in just a matter of weeks we’ll be looking at a 3-way tie placing the Sooners in a dead heat with USC and Notre Dame – looks like we’re going to have wait at least another season before we see which school can truly call itself,  First Pick U.