The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program represented itself quite well in the 2026 NFL Draft. The Irish had 6 players selected over the 3 day and 7 round event. The major highlights for Notre Dame from this past draft was running back Jeremiyah Love being selected by the Arizona Cardinals with the #3 pick, and with the last pick in the first round, the Seattle Seahawks called the name of running back Jadarian Price.
Notre Dame made history with those two selections, and they increased its lead for the most NFL Draft picks in history. So it all had me wondering… just how good of a draft was this for Notre Dame?
As much as I hate math, I feel like math is probably needed here — but I still hate math enough not to try and get too tricky with it either. (And yeah… I’m terrible at anything other than basic math, so don’t judge me Judgy Jude). So, I assigned each round with a value, but for the 1st round I gave extra weight to those in the top 5 and the top 10. Perhaps I should have split all of the rounds up into three parts, but again… that’s more math.
And now I’m starting to think someone else has probably done this somewhere else (and obviously better) but I move onward.
| ROUND | PICK VALUE |
|---|---|
| 1 (1-5) | 15 |
| 1 (6-10) | 12 |
| 1 (11-32) | 10 |
| 2 | 8 |
| 3 | 7 |
| 4 | 5 |
| 5 | 4 |
| 6 | 2 |
| 7 | 1 |
So, I couldn’t just use Notre Dame as the only team scored. That wouldn’t help much — but I also don’t have the time and/or skill to do the entire country either. I scored some of the biggest draft schools we’ve seen over the years, and I threw in USC as well just to prove that they are cowards that just can’t stack up to what Notre Dame has across the field from them.
Without anymore commentary, here are the scores I collected for the last 5 years. Make of it what you will.
| TEAM | 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notre Dame Fighting Irish | 45 / 6 | 30 / 6 | 43 / 7 | 18 / 3 | 14 / 2 |
| Ohio State Buckeyes | 90 / 11 | 93 / 14 | 32 / 4 | 51 / 6 | 41 / 6 |
| Michigan Wolverines | 33 / 6 | 56 / 7 | 69 / 13 | 45 / 9 | 39 / 5 |
| Clemson Tigers | 61 / 9 | 8 / 3 | 33 / 6 | 39 / 6 | 9 /2 |
| USC Trojans | 21 / 3 | 13 / 3 | 34 / 7 | 26 / 4 | 22 / 3 |
| Georgia Bulldogs | 54 / 8 | 74 / 13 | 57 / 8 | 62 / 10 | 107 / 15 |
| Alabama Crimson Tide | 49 / 10 | 43 / 7 | 65 / 10 | 81 / 10 | 57 / 7 |