On a couple of fronts, it was a good draft year for the Sunshine State. And for a couple of FBS programs further west as well.
Over the past couple of months, the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and WNBA held their respective amateur drafts, plucking their future contributors from the collegiate ranks. When the draft dust had settled, there were a grand total of four universities with FBS programs that had at least one player selected at some point in each of those drafts.
The Select Four? Florida State, Kansas State, Miami and Washington. And the latter, with Kelsey Plum (San Antonio Stars), was the only one of those with the first-overall pick in the draft.
When it comes to the sport related to this particular site, The U had the most NFL draftees with nine players taken. In fact, there were just two teams that saw more selected this past April -- Michigan (11) and Alabama (10).
Washington was next in this group with five players taken in the 2017 NFL draft, followed by FSU with four and K-State with two.
Across all four of these particular drafts, Michigan was far and away the leader with 23 student-athletes selected (11 NFL, 11 MLB, 1 NBA). Next closest was FSU with 17 (4, 9, 2, 1 WNBA), followed by ACC rival Clemson at 16 (6, 9, 1, 0) and UCLA’s 14 (5, 6, 3, 0).
And, since I’m here: Happy Fourth of July, yet another significant mile marker along the offseason road as, in just 53 days, Hawaii-UMass (five time zones away for the Rainbow Warriors), Oregon State-Colorado State (in a brand-new stadium) and Stanford-Rice (Down Under), among others, will officially kick off the 2017 college football season.
In other words, enjoy what’s left of your summer.