Have the Pittsburgh Steelers always ignored small school players?
By Eric Hassel
The Pittsburgh Steelers have avoided small school players as of late. Here’s why that wasn’t always the case.
During the decade of the 1970s, the Steelers won 4 Super Bowls in 6 years, winning back-to-back Super Bowls twice-Super Bowl IX, X, XIII and XIV. It was an unprecedented achievement; the Steelers became the organization every other organization wanted to emulate.
The Steelers won said Super Bowls on a pretty basic game plan: A “ground and pound” running game with passes sprinkled in for good measure and a suffocating defense. The Steelers also drafted exceptionally well during those Super Bowl winning years, particularly with respect to drafting players from ‘small school’ programs, but have the Steelers ignored the formula that brought the city of Pittsburgh 4 Lombardi trophies in 6 years? In other words, have the Steelers ignored drafting small school players?
Before we delve into our discussion about the seeming lack of attention exhibited by the Steelers to players from small school programs, let’s clarify what I mean by a ‘small school’ program. College football teams that are eligible to play in Bowl games are FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) programs. These programs are generally the ‘big time’ Division 1 schools, e.g. Michigan, Iowa, Alabama, etc. Conversely, college teams that are not eligible to participate in Bowl games are labeled as FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) and are generally the ‘smaller school’ programs, e.g. Alabama A&M, Florida A&M, South Carolina State, etc.
Just to level set here, there have been iconic NFL players who have hailed from ‘small school’ programs, not only Steeler players, but players from other teams as well. Let’s take a look at some of said players. As always, all statistics and biographical information courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.