Prepping for the NFL: How college football coaches compare at developing D-linemen
Editor's note: This is part of an ongoing series on how college coaches fare at developing players for the NFL. Check out previous stories on SEC offensive players, SEC defensive players, ACC offensive players, ACC defensive players, Big 12 defensive players, Big 12 offensive players, Pac-12 offensive players, Pac-12 defensive players, Big Ten offensive players, Big Ten defensive players, quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers/tight ends and offensive linemen.
Following the 2023 NFL Draft, FOX Sports pulled decades worth of recruiting data and looked at how productive (or not) each active Power 5 coach was at both recruiting and developing players when it came to the ultimate eye in the sky of the NFL.
Over a dozen parts this summer, we’ve looked at every Power 5 league to see who the best coaches within each conference are at developing players across every position group. But when looking at the picture nationally, just how do coaches stack up against each other when it comes to finding all of those good players and, well, coaching them up?
To sort it all out, FOX Sports utilized a points system that rewarded development and applied it to every active Power 5 coach’s draft class. Every drafted defensive lineman received a certain number based on what round he was drafted and what kind of recruit he was coming out of high school. An unrated defensive lineman coming out of high school going in the first round would be at the very highest end of the scale while a former five-star d-lineman sneaking into the seventh round of the draft would be at the lowest end.
To get a better picture at just how effective coaches were, this cumulative score was then divided by the number of seasons coached at the Division I level to get an overall rating.
As a result, here’s a look at how every active Power 5 coach in the country does when it comes to producing defensive linemen for the next level:
The Best: Ryan Day (Ohio State)
Once again, sending an incredible amount of talent to the league in a short time frame helps the offensive-minded Day land atop this list. In addition to averaging nearly two defensive linemen drafted per season coached, the majority of guys in the trenches that the OSU coach has been responsible for sending to the league have done so as top-75 picks – including a pair of pass rushers that went No. 2 overall in Chase Young and Nick Bosa.
Impressively, Day is also tied for the most defensive tackles (two in roughly five seasons in charge) to go in the top 100. While it’s more common to see an edge rusher drafted, the fact that Day has been as productive as he has been with interior guys so early in his tenure is a big separator as there are just a handful of coaches who have better overall numbers at DT than him. This includes DaVon Hamilton going from a three-star out of high school into the third round of the 2020 draft, as well as a host of four- and five-star prospects that have gone on to be drafted too.
It should probably be acknowledged that, much like being so good at developing wideouts, Day gets the benefit of having a top-notch staff to rely on. Associate head coach Larry Johnson is widely regarded as one of the best around when it comes to the guys up front on defense.
All the same, Day is at roughly half the overall number of defensive linemen drafted, number of first-rounders and number of top-100 DL taken as the No. 2 coach in the ranking – Dabo Swinney – in just a third of the amount of time as a head coach.
Also excellent: Dabo Swinney (Clemson), Jimbo Fisher (Florida State), Nick Saban (Alabama), Jim Harbaugh (Michigan)
Despite coming in a close second, Swinney has a right to claim the top spot considering he’s been doing it for 15 seasons and is one of just three active coaches to have more than 20 defensive linemen drafted. The Clemson coach’s seven first-rounders are as many as the guy currently at his alma mater, Nick Saban, and Swinney has seen 60% of his players drafted go inside the top-100 picks.
Just as impressive, every five-star Swinney has recruited through the class of 2020 (save current player Xavier Thomas) has been drafted, and many of those, from Myles Murphy and Bryan Bresee this spring to the likes of Christian Wilkins and Dexter Lawrence a few years ago, went in the first round.
Fisher isn’t too shabby in the same department, although the title-winning coach hasn’t been quite as good as Swinney at churning out first-rounders. Some of Fisher’s earliest development successes along the line came out of his early recruiting classes, with Bjorn Werner going from overlooked three-star into the first round, and Tank Carradine winding up in the second round after a junior college detour.
The opposite trajectory seems to be the case for Harbaugh. After being able to claim just three defensive linemen drafted through 2016, the Michigan coach has since turned Ann Arbor into quite the factory. Eleven players have been drafted along the line in the past seven years, and that’s included a first-rounder in five of those seasons. While five-stars like Rashan Gary lived up to the prep hype by being taken in the top-15 picks, Harbaugh has also seen top-notch development stories surface like three-star end Kwity Paye going 21st overall, ex-two-star transfer Mike Danna going in the fifth round, and the likes of four-star Mazi Smith going in the first round this past spring.
Yet none of the above can hold a candle to Saban when it comes to the overall numbers along the defensive line. Only Swinney and Mack Brown have more defensive linemen drafted than the 17 players Saban has seen go just inside the top 100. The 30 defensive linemen drafted over the course of nearly three decades is more than Swinney and Day have combined, and it’s especially amazing to note that over half of the guys drafted under Saban have been defensive tackles.
That split alone is slightly hard to fathom, even for an odd front guy, given how much easier it is to churn out pass rushers than find the big bodies needed along the interior.
Others of note: Lincoln Riley (USC), James Franklin (Penn State), Kirby Smart (Georgia), Mack Brown (North Carolina)
Riley is widely regarded as one of the best offensive minds in the game of football, but that is far from his singular focus given his solid track record on the opposite side of the ball. He has produced as many defensive ends as any active coach in the Pac-12 and his overall total of four pass rushers is the same number as Utah’s Kyle Whittingham in 12 fewer seasons. The Trojans coach also has seen half of his d-linemen go inside the top-100 picks.
Smart, for what it’s worth, does seem to have a lack of quantity in terms of defensive linemen drafted, but when all four wind up in the first round, it’s not for lack of quality.
As for Franklin, he has had seven defensive ends drafted over the years with a median pick of No. 65 overall, finding success at both ends of the spectrum from unranked Carl Nassib becoming a top-100 pick to Arnold Ebiketie transferring in and going near the top of the second round after being ranked just two-stars out of high school. Franklin has also had three linemen go in the first 40 picks in three of the last four drafts and also helped turn DT Austin Johnson from a three-star into a second-round pick a few years ago.
Surprisingly disappointing: Greg Schiano (Rutgers), Tom Allen (Indiana), Mel Tucker (Michigan State), Jonathan Smith (Oregon State), Neal Brown (West Virginia), Dino Babers (Syracuse), Justin Wilcox (Cal)
Across two stints and 14 full seasons in Piscataway, it’s a slight surprise that Schiano – a defensive coordinator at heart – has only had a single defensive lineman drafted, who was a seventh-round pick at that. Sure, part of that is the result of simply coaching at a program like Rutgers and the inherent talent limitations within, but that still belies some pretty solid defenses over the years and more than enough capable players along the line to get picked. No coach with at least 10 seasons in charge of an FBS/FCS program has fewer than two defensive linemen drafted, so Schiano is a bit of an outlier.
Allen, Tucker, Smith and Brown have all had at least four seasons running a program but have not had any defensive linemen drafted, while Babers has just two late-rounders across a dozen seasons at the Division I level.
Wilcox, who is the second-longest tenured head coach in the Pac-12, has had all nine of his draft picks come on defense, yet only one (seventh-rounder James Looney) was a defensive lineman.
Bryan Fischer is a college football writer for FOX Sports. He has been covering college athletics for nearly two decades at outlets such as NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Yahoo! Sports and NFL.com among others. Follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.