In the Tennessee chapter of Football Outsiders Almanac 2017 (which is still available, along with this year's version), we examined whether the Titans' selections of pass-catchers from three schools outside the power conferences early in that year's draft posed particular risks. More broadly, we explored whether particular collegiate conferences were better at producing players, and particularly very good players, at specific positions on offense. In this piece, we expand that effort to the defensive side of the ball.
The methodology is the same we used in that Tennessee chapter. Our base measure of value is Pro Football Reference's Approximate Value (AV).