2024 NFL Draft Highlights: Michigan Tops College Team Rankings, Texas Achieves Historic High

The 2024 NFL Draft wrapped up on Saturday after four rounds packed with defensive talent and reflecting last season's college football trends. The SEC led all conferences in draft picks, continuing its dominance from the past decade. However, the Pac-12 also had a notable draft, securing the second-highest number of picks following a successful season on the field.

Interestingly, the Pac-12's impressive draft performance comes as the conference is experiencing major changes, with several teams transitioning to other conferences later this summer, including four to the Big Ten and Big 12 each, and two to the ACC. Despite these shifts, this year’s draft celebrated the athletes who competed under the Pac-12 banner, allowing the conference to mark its success one last time with significant draft numbers outside of the SEC.

On the school front, Michigan was closely watched to see if it could surpass Georgia's record for the most draft picks from a single school in one year. Although Michigan did not break the record, ending up with 13 draft picks—two short of Georgia's 2022 record—it still led all schools in the total number of picks. This list also included notable performances from Texas with 11 picks, and Alabama, Florida State, and Washington each with 10 picks.

Texas set a new record for its program in the seven-round draft era with 11 picks. This follows a notable season where Texas clinched its first Big 12 championship since 2009 and made a debut appearance in the College Football Playoff. Among the notable picks were two first-rounders, Byron Murphy and Xavier Worthy, along with a slew of players selected on the third day, including tight end JT Sanders to the Panthers, offensive lineman Christian Jones to the Cardinals, and several others to various teams, highlighting a successful draft for the Longhorns.

Check out the full breakdown of picks by conferences and picks by school below: 

2024 NFL Draft picks by conference

  • SEC -- 59 

  • Pac-12 -- 43 

  • Big Ten -- 42 

  • ACC -- 41 

  • Big 12 -- 31 

  • Independent -- 8 

  • Sun Belt -- 6 

  • American -- 5 

  • Conference USA -- 3 

  • Mountain West -- 2 

  • MAC -- 2 

2024 NFL Draft pick by school 

  • Michigan -- 13 

  • Texas -- 11 

  • Alabama -- 10 

  • Florida State -- 10 

  • Washington -- 10 

  • Oregon -- 8 

  • Georgia -- 8 

  • Penn State -- 8 

  • Notre Dame -- 7 

  • USC -- 7 

  • Missouri -- 6 

  • LSU -- 6 

  • Clemson -- 6 

  • Utah -- 5 

  • Auburn -- 5 

  • Illinois, Iowa, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio State, Miami, South Carolina, Texas A&M -- 4

  • Arizona, Duke, Kansas State, Mississippi State, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Oregon State, Pitt, TCU, Tennessee, Wake Forest, Washington State -- 3 

  • Arkansas, Boston College, Kansas, Marshall, Maryland, NC State, Purdue, South Dakota State, Texas Tech, Troy, Tulane, UCF, UCLA, UTEP,  Wisconsin -- 2   

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