Northwestern draftees trending up

Northwestern has become a fairly consistent winner in college football under Pat Fitzgerald, producing .500 or better seasons in seven of the head coach’s 11 seasons.

One area where the Wildcats have been lacking, however, is sending players to the NFL and, more specifically, getting players drafted. Fitzgerald didn’t have a player drafted by the league until his fourth year in Evanston, and not a single Wildcat was selected in six of the 11 drafts he’s presided over.

But those numbers have been trending upward in recent years.

Northwestern had two players selected on Day 3 of the NFL Draft on Saturday: linebacker Anthony Walker Jr. went in the fifth round to the Indianapolis Colts and defensive end Ifeadi Odengibo was picked in the seventh round by the Minnesota Vikings.

That’s significant because it marked the third consecutive year that two Wildcats were drafted. Ibraheim Campbell (Cleveland, Round 4) and Trevor Siemian (Denver, 7) were selected in 2015, while Dean Lowry (Green Bay, 4) and Dan Vitale (Tampa Bay, 6) were picked last year’s draft.

That production may not count as much of an achievement at, say, Ohio State, where 24 Buckeyes were drafted in that same three-year period. But at Northwestern, it marks significant progress. You have to go all the way back to 1997-99 to find a three-year period where at least two Wildcats were drafted in each year – and that, of course, came on the heels of Northwestern’s legendary 1995-96 back-to-back Big Ten championship teams.

Northwestern’s string of multiple draftees will likely continue for at least a couple more years. Godwin Igwebuike and Justin Jackson are likely draft picks next year, and Tyler Lancaster and Garrett Dickerson have shots as well. The following year Clayton Thorson could be the first Wildcat drafted during the first two days (rounds 1-3) of the draft since defensive tackle Luis Castillo was taken in the first round in 2005 by the San Diego Chargers with the 28th pick overall. Keith Watkins II, Nate Hall and Jordan Thompson are some other Wildcats who could also be draft possibilities in that class.

The most players Fitzgerald has ever had drafted in a single class was three, in 2010, when Corey Wootton (Chicago, 4), Mike Kafka (Philadelphia, 4) and Sherrick McManis (Chicago, 5) were all selected. Three may not seem like a particularly high number – Michigan had 11 players selected over the weekend, after all – but for Northwestern it’s an accomplishment. You have to go back 32 years – interestingly, to the Dark Ages of NU football – to find a draft in which more Wildcats were selected. Northwestern’s 1985 draft class numbered four (Alex Moyer, Steve Tasker, Keith Cruise and Kevin Brown), though that number is less impressive than it sounds because the last three were taken in the ninth round or later and the draft ends after seven rounds now.

Looking back on Northwestern’s mostly dismal draft history, eight Wildcats have been taken in the first round of the draft, which dates to 1936. That ranks 59th all-time among college programs and more than only Rutgers in the Big Ten, with three.

The highest a Wildcat was ever taken was No. 4 overall, an honor bestowed upon all-time greats Otto Graham (1944) and Chris Hinton (1983). The most recent NU first-rounder was Castillo, and he and Napoleon Harris (2002, 23rd overall) were the only two in this millennium.

The most Northwestern players drafted in a single class? That was in 1961, by a wide margin, when 14 Wildcats heard their names called. That number, though, is again skewed, as players were drafted by both the NFL and AFL and both drafts were impossibly long. The last NU player taken was Mike Stock, who went in the 29th round to the Buffalo Bills.

There are several reasons for the recent surge in Northwestern draftees, but the most prominent one is recruiting. Fitzgerald and his staff have upgraded the talent level, particularly in the 2010s, though not just by landing the highest-rated prospects. Odenigbo is the highest ranked recruit Fitzgerald has landed to date, a four-star ranked in the Rivals100, but Walker was a low three-star who had just three Power Five offers. Of the 11 Cats taken since 2010, three were two-star prospects coming out of high school (Vitale, Drake Dunsmore and Jeremy Ebert) and one (Sherrick McManis) was not even ranked. It takes a combination of talent identification and talent development to put a player in the NFL.

It goes without saying that increasing the number of Wildcats selected in the NFL Draft will only improve recruiting in the future. Elite high school players are eyeing a shot to play on Sundays, so the more they see players in purple getting drafted, the easier it will be for Northwestern to land more of them in the future.