With Cole Kmet, Chase Claypool, Julian Okwara, Khalid Kareem, Troy Pride, Jr. and Alohi Gilman getting drafted over the weekend Notre Dame now has as many NFL Draft picks as any school in college football history.
Depending on who you listen to, anyway.
NO school has more All-Time NFL Draft picks than Notre Dame. ✨#GoIrish x #IrishInTheNFL x #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/4np0ESaHK3
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) April 25, 2020
Notre Dame made that claim early Saturday evening on Twitter and also in their press release that recapped the annual draft. The first two sentences from that release:
With six players selected in the 2020 NFL Draft, Notre Dame Football has totaled 511 draft picks over the tenure of the program. No other college football program has totaled more than the Irish.
A quick look to DraftHistory.com finds that Notre Dame does in fact have 511 draft picks all-time but that USC actually has 512.
Don’t count USC in that way of thinking however as USC is also proud of their 511 all-time selections that they claim on their official athletics website. At the time of Michael Pittman’s selection in round two their release said the following:
Pittman is USC’s 511th all-time NFL draftee, the most of any school. He is the 16th Trojan wide receiver drafted since 2000, including the 10th in the top two rounds.
Both schools claim 511 while the website prided on all things NFL Draft claims a different number for USC. I’d go and count myself but I’d rather not. Way too many numbers for a Sunday afternoon if you ask me.
My favorite part of all of it though is that there is no mention of the other on either Notre Dame or USC’s websites or releases. Instead it’s just “as many as any other school” or something of the sort. We not be getting any live games anytime soon but I’m here for the *redacted, replaced with* spitting match between these two rivals.
Honest question, though: does USC get to claim Reggie Bush if they don’t acknowledge he ever stepped foot on their campus in any other capacity?