One sign of how far UVA Football has fallen is out there for the world to see this week at the 2025 NFL Draft.
We’re only expecting to hear the name of one of our football alums called for the fourth straight year.
Safety Jonas Sanker is a projected Day 2 pick, expected to go in the third or fourth round.
Sanker, when his name is called, will join last year’s one-and-done grad transfer, Malik Washington, who went in the sixth round to the Miami Dolphins, and Dontayvion Wicks, a Bronco Mendenhall/Robert Anae guy who went in the fifth round in 2023 to the Green Bay Packers, as Tony Elliott Years draft picks.
Jelani Woods, a one-and-done grad transfer who put up good numbers in Mendenhall’s final season in Charlottesville, went in the third round to the Indianapolis Colts in 2022.
Sanker will be the 11th UVA Football alum to go in the last 10 NFL Drafts.
For perspective, 32 of our guys had their names called in the 10-year stretch spanning 2000-2009, and the 1990s had 34 of our guys going in the draft.
Before you @me about drafts in the 1990s going 12 rounds, the NFL actually went to the current seven-round format in 1994, and five of our 34 taken in the 1990-1993 drafts went in rounds eight or later.
Point being, George Welsh and Al Groh could recruit and develop guys to play at the next level.
Since Mike London took over for Groh in 2010, we’ll have had a total of 20 guys taken in the draft once Sanker has his name called.
Twenty guys in 16 years, after 32 guys in the preceding 10 years, and 34 guys in the 10 years before that one.
Our record in the 2000s, when we averaged 3.2 guys per year going in the draft: 65-59.
In the 1990s, with 3.4 guys a year going in the draft: 78-40-1.
Our teams are 74-107 since 2010, with 1.25 guys a year going in the draft.
The NFL is telling us something here.
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Chris Graham
