According to Matt Miller of the Bleacher Report, the Miami football program is in the top dozen teams nationally with players projected to be selected in the NFL Draft this weekend.
Matt Miller of the Bleacher Report ranked the top 400 players for the 2020 NFL Draft. The NFL Draft has 259 draft picks this year through seven rounds including compensatory picks. Six of those players projected to be chosen were with the Miami football program in 2019, which is tied for ninth nationally.
Eight Miami Hurricanes players participated at the NFL Combine in late February, early March. “Jonathan Garvin (5th round), DeeJay Dallas (6th round), Shaquille Quarterman (7th round), Trevon Hill (7th round), Jeff Thomas (7th round), Michael Pinckney (7th round)” are the players expected to be chosen in the NFL Draft.
Wide receiver K.J. Osborn and cornerback Trajan Bandy also participated in the NFL Combine but Miller does not project them to be taken. Miami was tied with Georgia, Notre Dame and Oregon among the schools that are projected to have a half dozen players chosen.
Miami Hurricanes Football
Ironically, Lawrence Cager is one of the players from Georgia projected to be drafted this weekend. Cager spent the first three seasons of his collegiate career with Miami before transferring to Georgia for the 2019 season. Osborne was essentially the player that replaced Cager.
Osborn went on to lead Miami in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns in 2019. If you take Cager off of Georgia and put him back on Miami, the Hurricanes move up to a tie for seventh with Clemson and Florida. The issue for Miami has been not enough top-end talent being drafted.
Miami has been a top 10 program producing NFL talent from 2010-19. The problem has been not enough of those players have been day one or two NFL draft picks. From 2010-19 Miami had 50 players selected in the NFL Draft. Only 17 of those players were taken in the first three rounds and only three were first-round picks.
As stated above via the Bleacher Report, none of the players from Miami projected to be drafted in 2020 are expected to be chosen in the first two days of the NFL Draft. That is likely to change next season with defensive end Greg Rousseau and tight end Brevin Jordan projected to be first-round NFL Draft picks.
The Miami football program needs to recruit and develop more top-end talent. Rousseau came to Miami as a borderline three/four-star signee. Jordan was the top-ranked TE in 2019. Miami needs more players no matter what their recruiting ranking was when they signed to become top-end talent and be drafted earlier.