Ultimately, the results of the NFL Draft are tangential to the success of a college football program, but it’s impossible to deny that the teams with the most pro talent have the best chance to win at the college level.
The Ohio State Buckeyes just had 14 players selected in the 2025 NFL Draft and four in the first round after winning the national title. In 2024, Michigan saw 13 players from its national championship team come off the draft board in Detroit, and had three more first-rounders a year later in 2025. High-end talent isn’t everything, but it’s pretty close, and James Franklin, along with his Big Ten rivals, is attracting and developing more and more of it.
It took Franklin four seasons into his tenure to produce a first-round pick, an understandable trajectory in the pre-transfer portal era. That first first-rounder was the No. 2 overall selection, Saquon Barkley. Barkley’s dominant 2016 season, a year before he left for the draft, produced the Nittany Lions’ only Big Ten title of Franklin’s tenure, but it took another few seasons before Penn State began to regularly churn out first-round talent.
The 2021 NFL Draft was the first time that Penn State produced two first-round selections under James Franklin and the first time since 2003 when Jimmy Kennedy, Michael Haynes, Bryant Johnson, and Larry Johnson were all first-rounders.
The 2025 NFL Draft saw two more Penn State first-rounders with Abdul Carter going to the New York Giants with the No. 3 overall selection, and Tyler Warren slipping to the Indianapolis Colts with the 14th pick. Coming on the heels of the Olu Fashanu and Chop Robinson selections in 2024, it was the first time Penn State produced multiple first-round picks in back-to-back drafts since 1995 and 1996.
Now, Franklin appears to be on the cusp of a breakthrough, with a loaded group of returners after a College Football Playoff Semifinal appearance last season, and the elite NFL prospects match up with a roster capable of winning it all. Three Nittany Lions were included in ESPN’s way-too-early 2026 NFL mock draft, and those players could join this illustrious group of former Happy Valley superstars.
Every 1st-round NFL Draft pick of the James Franklin era
2018 NFL Draft
- Saquon Barkley, RB, No. 2 overall, New York Giants
2021 NFL Draft
- Micah Parsons, OLB, No. 12 overall, Dallas Cowboys
- Odafe Oweh, DE, No. 31 overall, Baltimore Ravens
2022 NFL Draft
- Jahan Dotson, WR, No. 16 overall, Washington Football Team
2024 NFL Draft
- Olumuyiwa Fashanu, OT, No. 11 overall, New York Jets
- Chop Robinson, DE, No. 21 overall, Miami Dolphins
2025 NFL Draft
- Abdul Carter, DE, No. 3 overall, New York Giants
- Tyler Warren, TE, No. 14, Indianapolis Colts