NFL Combine: Xavier McKinney, Grant Delpit and the SECs DBU [9Rhne5meQh6]
The All-Pro Team is All SEC, and Jeff Okudah has to know that. The SEC boasts 11 players on the 2019 All-Pro First or Second Team. Six play defense. Five play defensive back. Four came from Alabama. Three played defensive back at LSU. The Big 12 had just two All-Pro selections across both teams. One is a punter. One is a kicker. Mecole Hardman went to Georgia. J.T. Gray went to Mississippi State. Stephon Gilmore went to South Carolina. Cordarrelle Patterson went to Tennessee. Here are teams that had more All-Pro selections than Oklahoma: UCLA, Stanford, Iowa, Ohio State, Clemson, Cincinnati, Cal, Boston College and Toledo. And that’s only because they each had TWO. Wisconsin has three. Notre Dame had three. LSU had three and Alabama led ‘em all with four. All three of LSU’s All-Pro players play defensive back. I’m talking about Jamal Adams, Tyrann Mathieu—AKA Honey Badger—and Tre’Davious White who showed us all what happens when an All-Pro wide out matchups with an All-Pro corner. To say he catches six of eight targets for 90 yards is misleading. What DeAndre Hopkins did to White is more like what happened right after Matthew McConaughey told that faceless soul staring back at him in that ubiquitous teaser trailer for The Gentlemen: the only rule of the jungle is when the lion is hungry, he eats. It’s no wonder Dwight McGloin, a 2020 corner back declared he’s going to LSU on national TV. That’s not just three All-Pro players but 2019 Jim Thorpe Award winner Grant Delpit he’s following. Then he went had two picks, including a pick six against the best QBs and wide outs in his class on Saturday at the All-American Bowl. He’ll join a class led by the best tight end prospect of the last five years, Arik Gilbert, and one of the best defensive backs in the country in Elias Ricks. Two of Bama’s four are DBs, which makes all the sense in the world when you know what guru Nick Saban is when it comes to defensive back technique. And it speaks volumes about his players’ mental toughness: Minkah Fitzpatrick was traded from a really bad team to a bad team and still made the All-Pro First Team. His effort is a reflection of his tempo. Not Trent Williams. Not Samaje. Not AD. Oklahoma: Tress Way | P | Washington Redskins (Second-team) Texas: Justin Tucker | K | Baltimore Ravens (First-team) Now take a look at the list of 337 men on display at the meat market in the butcher’s section of the the NFL known as Lucas Oil Stadium. You’ll see 16 players from LSU. 10 from Alabama. 10 from Georgia. Nine from Auburn. Eight from Florida. Seven from Mississippi State. Six from Mizzou, and five each from South Carolina and Tennessee. Oklahoma had just four total. And if OU’s four sounds like a low number, that’s because it is. Arkansas, Colorado, Boise State, Texas and Arizona State each had four. Means the NFL thought the Mountain West, the bottom of the SEC, the bottom of the Pac-13, the third-best team in the Pac-12 and the team that hasn’t produced a first round draft pick in five years is as good at developing talent as OU. Clemson had seven. So did Washington. Baylor boasts six—four of which play defense. Meanwhile Tulsa produced just as many as Combine invites as Memphis, Cincy, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Purdue, Southern Methodist, Kentucky and Stanford. That’s keeping pace with five Power 5 teams and the two best teams in the American last season. So I’m not listening to any excuses for going 5-7 in a Group of 5 conference last year. Rock THAT like a Hurricane. Join RJ's YT membership community: 🎧 THE RJ YOUNG PODCAST (iTunes) ➡️ RJ's newsletter: RJ on Twitter: RJ on Instagram: RJ on Facebook: RJ'S SHIRT STORE SUPPORT RJ ON PATREON //SEND ME STUFF// P.O. Box 700445 Tulsa, OK 74170 //BIO// RJ Young is the host of The RJ Young Show on The Sports Animal from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. CT weekdays. He has appeared on CBS Sports Network as a college football analyst and co-host. His book LET IT BANG was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2018. He was featured in Natural Light's 2019 Super Bowl commercial. He graduated with a master's in professional writing from the University of Oklahoma. He doesn't like it when his socks get wet. #TheRJYoungShow