Question
Kyler Murray will have his name called early, and for the first time, quarterbacks from the same school will be drafted in the first round in back-to-back years (following Baker Mayfield). Remarkably, in the Super Bowl era, never before has one school even had a quarterback chosen with a first- or second-round pick two years in a row. The question: which two schools have had quarterbacks chosen in the first three rounds in consecutive years? One pair comes from the ‘80s, and both attempted passes (note the wording) in Super Bowl games. The other pair are both still active. For this question, I’m using only final colleges for players (that is, Joe Flacco counts as a Delaware quarterback but not a Pitt quarterback).
Answer
Maryland and Cal. In 1984, Cincinnati used a second-round pick on Boomer Esiason. The following year, Buffalo selected Frank Reich in the third round. Coming off the bench, Reich completed 19 of 32 passes in Super Bowl games – hence the effort to help you along with the hint. For Cal, Jared Goff was the No. 1 overall pick in 2016, and Davis Webb (who ended last year with the Jets) was a third-round pick by the Giants the next year. Webb, Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes all started their college careers at Texas Tech, so if we’re looking at earlier schools, that would be the place to start – two first-round picks and a third-rounder in the 2017-18 drafts.