One statistical category shows how far Hogs behind championship caliber brethren

There used to be a pretty clear standard for what it takes to claim a national championship in college football.

There must be double-digit first round NFL draft picks in your league to guarantee your team is built in the fires of ultimate combat against the best there is. Also, roughly half of those picks from the year you win it need to come from your team.

That doesn't mean that's all the first round picks on the team. Surely, the following season will have multiple picks still on the roster, but having older, more mature players of that caliber to lead the team matters.

This is why Arkansas is rarely a threat in the modern era. The 2006 team had a first round pick in Tony Ugoh and a pair of first round picks for the following season in Felix Jones and Darren McFadden.

After getting curb stomped by USC to open the season, the Razorbacks rolled off 10 wins in a row before reality and a lot of drama caught up to them, resulting in three losses to close the season.

The following season with Jones and McFadden still around, things didn't go quite as well.

The Razorbacks only won eight games, although most remember the season as going better because of a huge 50-48 triple overtime win over No. 1 LSU to close the season. Shortly after that win, Houston Nutt loaded up his car and went to Ole Miss.

What the numbers show from just prior to NIL until now is this winning formula dynamic is shifting a bit, which is not good news for the SEC. Back in 2019 when a loaded LSU team proved to be completely unstoppable despite its coach, the SEC boasted 13 first round draft picks.

Of those, five came off that national championship roster, including No. 1 pick Joe Burrow at quarterback. The following season Nick Saban claimed his final national title at Alabama with six first round draft picks while the SEC sent a dozen to the podium on the NFL's first night of picks.

Georgia kept the trend going, helping Kirby Smart to his first national championship in 2021 with a roster that featured five first rounders while the league again rolled a dozen first round picks out into competition.

However, as the NIL era began to take hold and the college football world became more transactional, the shift in numbers began to change. The Bulldogs made it look easy with a 65-7 bombing of TCU, but they had to rally from 14 down to beat Ohio St., 42-41, in the previous round.

It was the first true sign of SEC weakness in comparison to the Big Ten in a while. That particular Georgia team only had three first round draft picks and it was a down year for the SEC with eight overall.

What it laid was the foundation for a full change in the weight of having first rounders on the roster in the college football playoffs. The following season a controversial Michigan team riddled with scandal went 15-0 with a single first round draft pick in quarterback JJ McCarthy.

The Big Ten only had four picks spread across its entire league, suddenly turning a time-tested formula upside down. Ohio State returned things slightly more to form with their national championship this past season.

The Buckeyes featured four first round picks on their roster. Technically, they faced stiffer competition in conference play along the way, but it should be noted the Big Ten had more picks partially because there were four more teams to add to that total number.

The Big Ten finished the 2025 draft with 11 first round picks. Meanwhile, an SEC expanded by half as many schools, sent 15 to the league on the draft's first day.

For comparison's sake, Arkansas has had five first round draft picks since 2006. That's one every five years for a team that needs five in a single year to be able to compete.

It seems highly unlikely the Razorbacks will have more than one, at most potential first round draft picks this season. Therefore, it's reasonable to scratch national championship off the list of goals this year no matter how the first four games end up unfolding.

Mathematically, Arkansas is already theoretically eliminated for at least the next four seasons no matter who coaches this team. That's just the truth in the numbers.

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