Draftwire published their 2-round NFL mock draft on Wednesday and not a single Bruin was taken in the 64 selections, while the draft remains months away and the mock draft is far from a sure thing, it’d be just the fifth time in the past decade that no UCLA players were taken in the opening two rounds.
There were just two Californian players taken in the mock draft, Stanford wide receiver Elic Ayomanor going #36 to the Tennessee Titans and USC’s safety Kamari Ramsey going #44 to the Miami Dolphins. After a 5-7 season in their first year in the Big Ten, there’s yet to be a Bruins’ prospect to shoot up draft boards.
If the mock draft comes to fruition, it’d be the first time since 2022 that UCLA didn’t have a player go in the first two rounds, with that happening in 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019. When Bruins have been selected in the first two rounds over the last decade, there’s been quite a few success stories, in 2016 3x Pro Bowler Kenny Clark went 27th overall, All-Pro linebacker Eric Kendricks 45th overall in 2015, and most recently Laiatu Latu going 15th overall in this year’s draft.
It hasn’t all been perfect however, with Josh Rosen having a short stint with the Arizona Cardinals after being taken 10th overall or Takkarist McKinley only starting 27 games over seven seasons after being taken 26th overall by the Atlanta Falcons.