Column: NFL overlooks small schools

What do I have in common with the NFL’s leading rusher, besides 225 pounds of muscle and a tie for the Houston Texans’ team single-game rushing record? If you guessed “neither of you were drafted by an NFL team,” you’d be right. Arian Foster, whose 635 yards through six games leads all rushers, was passed over 256 times during the seven rounds of the 2009 NFL Draft. He was signed to the practice squad of the Texans, won a shot during training camp, ran for 231 yards during week 1, and the rest will be history.This isn’t a phenomenon particular to Foster, either. The New York Giants’ Ahmad Bradshaw is third in the NFL in rushing yards. He was drafted with the 250th pick in the 2007 draft.

Everybody knows Tom Brady’s story, but it’s worth remembering that the Patriots’ star quarterback was drafted in the sixth round once upon a time, and that his favorite possession target, Wes Welker, wasn’t drafted at all. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo went undrafted in 2003. Harvard’s Ryan Fitzpatrick (seventh round) has a passer rating of almost 100 for the Buffalo Bills, and the list of eight players with the most receiving yards includes two fourth-round picks (Brandon Lloyd and Austin Collie) and an incredible three undrafted players (Malcom Floyd, Antonio Gates and Miles Austin). Defensively, undrafted stars include Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison and Washington Redskins linebacker London Fletcher.This is a weird thing. The scouts, general managers and coaches of the NFL are (presumably) the best judges of football talent in the world. They shouldn’t all miss on so many of the same guys, but they have. Put it this way: No matter who your favorite football team is, they could theoretically have Tom Brady, Arian Foster, Ahmad Bradshaw, Brandon Lloyd, Antonio Gates and Miles Austin, and not have lost any of the picks they made before the sixth round.So what do these diamonds in the rough have in common? Is there any way to predict these late bloomers of the gridiron, these pigskin Cinderellas? A clue may lie in the following string of seemingly unrelated words.Marshall. Harvard. Wyoming. Kent State. Eastern Illinois. Monmouth.

These schools are the alma maters of Bradshaw, Fitzpatrick, Floyd, Gates, Romo and Austin, respectively, and are not exactly known for their football prowess. The players all put up gaudy dominant numbers at these mediocre-to-poor programs (with the exception of Gates, who actually played basketball at Kent State) but consistently had their performances severely discounted because of the weaker competition.I’m not saying that weaker competition has nothing to do with star-level performances. Certainly, dominating the Ivy League or the Northeast Conference is miles away from playing at a high level in the Southeastern Conference or Big Ten.But the adjustment may be too high if it leads to so many players slipping through the cracks. And in my obsessively egalitarian Bowl Championship Series-hating mind, it might mean that dominant teams in weaker conferences (like, say, Boise State) might deserve a little bit more respect than they tend to get.

This leads me to wonder which players are at this very moment tearing up the competition at East Nowhere State and will become NFL stars after going overlooked and undrafted.One notable example comes from my favorite BCS-buster, the aforementioned Boise State Broncos and their blue field. Kellen Moore leads the Football Bowl Series with a 190.3 passer rating (don’t ask me how it’s calculated) and has thrown 80 touchdowns and 14 interceptions in two-and-a-half seasons despite being frequently taken out of the game with large leads. But on a website calling itself the “leading authority on the NFL Draft,” he is not listed as among the top 20 draft-eligible quarterbacks. I know he’s not that tall, but the man is averaging over 30 touchdowns a season! For another shot in the dark, try a player who recently ran all over Princeton’s defense, Colgate’s Nate Eachus. Eachus has run for 1016 yards and 12 touchdowns in six games, startling numbers no matter where you play. He too is not viewed as a top prospect, and I’d be shocked if he were drafted.In a few years, though, we’ll be wondering where these undrafted guys came from as they fill up NFL stat sheets and rosters, and maybe players like Moore and Eachus will be among them. If I’m wrong, at least I’ll be able to take solace in my new role as a starting wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs.