The league’s coaches have heard about it, and they say (on the record, at least) that they’re not concerned about it and, frankly, they’re tired of talking about it.
“You have cycles.
You have waves,” Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury told ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg.
I don’t think it’s panic mode yet.” Added West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen: “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.
I’m a little tired of [the media] making it a big deal.” And TCU’s Gary Patterson: “I don’t go out and recruit saying, ‘This guy, the only reason I’m going to take him is he fits the NFL model.
‘” While it’s true that the Big 12 coaches’ jobs is to find players that win games first, second and third and find players the NFL may one day like somewhere around sixth or seventh, it’s impossible to NFL’s tepid interest in Big 12 players as anything other than another problematic data point in a disturbing ongoing trend for this once proud conference.
It’d be easy to ignore last weekend’s NFL Draft if the Big 12 didn’t also produce a then-low 17 picks in 2014.
It’d be easy to ignore last weekend’s NFL Draft if the Big 12 wasn’t also consistently behind its peers in signing top 250 recruits.
There’s nothing saying that can’t change.
More than anything else, though, the conference’s fortunes won’t turn until its coaches find a way to recruit a large influx of talented players.