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Notre Dame

From where do most Notre Dame football NFL Draft picks hail since 2000?

photos -jpgby: Ashton Pollard03/22/22ashtonpollard7
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Miles Boykin is a 2015 graduate of New Lenox (Ill.) Providence Catholic. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)

If I asked you to guess from which state Notre Dame has pulled the most NFL Draft talent since 2000, you’d probably begin thinking along the following lines: Where does Notre Dame typically recruit and which states produce NFL-level players each year?

That might lead you to guess the following states: Florida? No. California? Nope. How about Texas? Incorrect. Maybe Ohio? They’ve had great success with players going pro. Wrong again.

The answer is Illinois. Notre Dame has sent 10 players from Illinois to the NFL since 2000, one more than it has from Ohio. Eight players have come from both Florida and Texas, while seven have been California natives.

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Now, this makes sense when you look at it from a geographic standpoint. Chicago is the nearest big city, and it’s awash with blue and gold. But the Windy City isn’t typically known as an overly fertile recruiting area. Does it make sense that Illinois natives go to Notre Dame? Of course. They signed 15 players from Illinois over the last 10 years and 37 since 1999.

But does it make sense that the state is responsible for the most Notre Dame NFL Draft picks of any other state since the turn of the century? I was a little surprised.

Who are the 10 players from Illinois?

All 10 players are from the Chicago metro area. In other words, it pays to be Chicago’s team.

Notre Dame has sent six offensive players to the league since 2000: tight ends Jerome Collins (2005) and Cole Kmet (2020); offensive linemen Dan Stevenson (2006), Dan Santucci (2007) and Chris Watt (2014); and receiver Miles Boykin (2019).

Safeties Glenn Earl (2004) and Tom Zbikowski (2008); EDGE Darius Fleming (2012); and corner Julian Love (2019) are the defensive players from Illinois Notre Dame has had drafted this century.

Fleming, Love, Boykin and Kmet are the only players with a ranking from the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. Kmet was the highest-rated prospect out of Arlington Heights (Ill.) St. Viator, with an On3 Consensus rating of 93.53. He was the No. 3 tight end and player from Illinois and No. 93 player overall in the 2017 class.

Both Boykin and Fleming were the No. 2 players out of the state in their respective classes according to On3 Consensus.

How do the other top states compare when adjusted for total signees?

As I mentioned, Florida, California, Texas and Ohio fall behind Illinois in the top five. What is Notre Dame’s success rate since 1999 in those states?

Note: The classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022 are excluded from this count entirely as they are not yet draft eligible. Additionally, it excludes Kevin Austin Jr., a Florida native, as we have yet to see if he is drafted.

Illinois: 10 of 34 signees have been drafted (29.4 percent)

Ohio: nine of 32 signees have been drafted (28.1 percent)

Texas: eight of 30 signees have been drafted (26 percent)

California: seven of 38 signees have been drafted (18.4 percent)

Florida: eight of 47 signees have been drafted (17 percent)

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