Panthers Stock Up on SEC Talent

[Untouchable]

The SEC is the conference that is widely regarded as having the most NFL talent and it's been backed up come the draft as it has had the most selections every year for 13 years running.  The conference set a record this year too with 64 selections.  This isn't a bad strategy either because the players should be the easiest projections to the NFL.  Say player might have 1000 snaps of tape for evaluators to study but not all of them are against NFL talent, in fact in the cases of small school prospects, maybe only a handful are.  Statistically, you should increase your odds of hitting on these picks by having more chances to evaluate a player against the talent they would see on Sundays.

5 of the 7 selections the Panthers selected this year were from the SEC.  The 2 that weren't, did come from a power 5 conference so they still got plenty of opportunities to put quality tape up, but they also had multiple games against the top conference.  Burns had 4 games across three seasons against the SEC (plus 3 more against Clemson and another against Notre Dame) and Grier had 5 games (4 while at Florida)

There also seems to present a difference in style from the GMs.  Gettleman, known for his scouting ability while with the Giants (say what you will about that in Carolina) used 4/27 picks across his four drafts on players from the SEC.  He also used almost 1/3rd (8/27) on players from outside the power 5 conferences.  In the two drafts since Hurney's return, over half of his picks have now come from the SEC (8/15) and he hasn't used a single selection on a player outside the power 5 conferences.  I don't know if it speaks to a greater gap in talent from the power 5 to small schools since the college playoff system started but I do know the money being spent on facilities, coaches and whatnot to get top talent out of high school is ridiculous in the SEC and a bunch of the other top schools in the power 5.  Something to potentially monitor with Hurney at the helm and in drafts going forward.