This is the 82nd year for the NFL Draft, which was first introduced in 1936. Since then, a player from the University of Oklahoma has been selected in the first round 29 times and 43 Sooners overall have been picked in the first round.
The 2017 Draft is not one of those years. No Sooner was taken in the first round of this year’s draft, which is continuing for the next two days from the City of Brotherly Love in Philadelphia.
In fact, only one player from a Big 12 school heard his name called in the first round on Thursday. Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes – who torched the Oklahoma secondary for 734 passing yards and ran for 85 more in an old-fashioned Texas shootout last season in a game the Sooners somehow managed to win – was selected by the Kansas City Chiefs with the 10th overall pick in this year’s draft.
The last time only one player out of the Big 12 was taken in the opening round of the draft was in 2008 (Aquib Talib, a cornerback out of Kansas).
Coming into this year’s NFL Draft, Oklahoma ranked fourth all-time for the number of players selected in the draft (377), behind USC (497), Notre Dame (493) and Ohio State (429).
Although Joe Mixon has a good chance of being selected in the second round on Friday, there is an equally good chance he could fall to the third round or later, not because of questions about his ability and all-purpose versatility, but rather concerns about his attitude and off-the-field behavior. All stemming from an incident almost three years ago, when he struck a female student in the face, that has since been made very public and has been damaging to Mixon’s image and NFL draft status.
Only 29 times in the 81-year history of the NFL Draft have the Sooners failed to have a first- or second-round selection. Under current head coach Bob Stoops, that has happened just three times (2014, 2011, 2001).
Odds are probably 50/50, and even higher if Mixon falls to the third round, that all five of the Oklahoma Sooners likely to be selected in this year’s draft will come between rounds three and six.
Three former Sooners have been selected No. 1 overall in the draft (Sam Bradford, the most recent, in 2010, Billy Sims in 1980 and Lee Roy Selmon in 1976). Three other Sooners have been taken with the second overall pick.
In case you were wondering, the Oklahoma player who holds the dubious distinction of having the highest overall draft number in the history of the NFL Draft is Monty Johnson, a defensive back, who played under head coach Chuck Fairbanks, and whom 50 years ago this month, former Sooner head coach Jim Mackenzie was on a recruiting trip to visit when he died after just one season as the Sooner head coach.
Johnson was the 427th player taken in the 1971 NFL Draft, selected in the 17th round by the Green Bay Packers.