T.Y. Hilton had the great year for the Colts last year. He's the little receiver out of Florida International that they took in the third round.
And it occurs to me, there have been a lot of receivers from smaller schools that have done well. The most famous example being Jerry Rice from Mississippi Valley State. Not that he was unheard of - all the teams knew who he was - but Eddie Brown (Miami) and Al Toon (Wisconsin) were selected before him that year. With them, there wasn't the issue of wondering whether they were just dominating against inferior competition.
So I decided to do a short and unscientific study. I looked at all of the receivers drafted in the third round in the last 20 years. I divided them into two piles - 75 guys from big schools. And 15 guys from the smaller, less-known schools.
Then I went through each of the 90 and gave them a grade. Either "bust", "great pick" or "in the middle".
There's some grey area here, of course. Is East Carolina small enough to be a small school? And many of the players are hard to grade. Does Jacoby Jones go down as a "great pick"? He just helped Baltimore win a Super Bowl, so I said yes, but he was drafted by Houston and didn't quite work out there.
So I will concede, there's gray area.
But according to my numbers, the hit rate for small schools is much higher. I've got them at 6 out of 15, or 40 percent, with some other guys also having some value. Laurent Robinson wasn't a bust, and Andre Roberts of Arizona could arguably be put in the good class.
With the big schools, the hit rate was only 18 out of 75, or about 24 percent. So small schools were almost twice as good.
To me, this means that when an NFL team has a strong feeling about a small school receiver and is willing to select him in the third round (rather than risking waiting until the fourth), there's a pretty good chance that guy will be a good player.
For those in dynasty leagues, I would recommend that if you're torn between two receivers selected in a similar area of the NFL draft, you go with the smaller-school guy.
On this chart, I put two dots (^aEURc^aEURc) in front of guys who definitely paid off -- guys who definitely were good draft picks. One dot for the maybe-or-maybe-not guys, and the bust guys I left blank. I will post a better-looking version of the same chart on the Facebook page, with colors instead of dots.
SMALL SCHOOL RECEIVERS IN THIRD ROUND (LAST 20 YEARS)
Team Year
S.D. 1992 Ray Ethridge (Pasadena Comm. College)
S.F. 1996 ^aEURc^aEURcTerrell Owens (Tennessee-Chattanooga)
Dall. 1996 Stepfret Williams (Northeast Louisiana)
NYJ 1997 ^aEURcDedric Ward (Northern Iowa)
Mia. 1998 Larry Shannon (East Carolina)
Chi. 1999 ^aEURc^aEURcMarty Booker (Northeast Louisiana)
NYG 2000 Ron Dixon (Lambuth, Tenn.)
Jac. 2007 ^aEURc^aEURcMike Sims-Walker (Central Florida)
G.B. 2007 ^aEURc^aEURcJames Jones (San Jose State)
Hou. 2007 ^aEURc^aEURcJacoby Jones (Lane College, Tenn.)
Atl. 2007 ^aEURcLaurent Robinson (Illinois St.)
NYG 2009 Ramses Barden (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo)
Ariz. 2010 ^aEURcAndre Roberts (The Citadel)
NYG 2011 Jerrel Jerrigan (Troy, Ala.)
Ind. 2012 ^aEURc^aEURcT.Y. Hilton (Florida International)
^aEUR"Ian Allan