NFL Teams’ College Favorites: Pittsburgh Steelers

Have you ever wondered where your favorite NFL team likes to look for next-level talent? When coaches, general managers, and scouts create a plan, it often includes ‘shopping’ at places they trust. In this series, the most popular colleges for each NFL team will be discovered.

With data pulled from Pro Football Reference, these five colleges have the most players selected in the draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers since 1975:

Penn State University, 14

• Pat Freiermuth
• Marcus Allen
• Jesse James
• A.Q. Shipley
• Matt Kranchick
• Jon Witman
• Eric Ravotti
• Darren Perry
• Leroy Thompson
• Tim Johnson
• Gregg Garrity
• Matt Bahr
• Ron Coder
• Greg Murphy

Ohio State University, 13

• Doran Grant
• Ryan Shazier
• Mike Adams
• Cameron Heyward
• Thaddeus Gibson
• Dough Worthington
• Santonio Holmes
• Rodney Bailey
• Mike Vrabel
• Scottie Graham
• Jeff Graham
• Ken Fritz
• Larry Kain

University of Nebraska, 12

• Carlos Davis
• Keith Williams
• Chad Kelsay
• Kris Brown
• Brendan Stai
• Donta Jones
• Barron Miles
• Richard Bell
• Mark Behning
• Mark Dufresne
• Wonder Monds
• Marvin Crenshaw

University of Florida, 12

• Chris Rainey
• Marcus Gilbert
• Maurkice Pouncey
• Dallas Baker
• Max Starks
• Hesham Ismail
• Huey Richardson
• Ernie Mills
• David Little
• Alvin Cowans
• Jimmy Stephens
• Wayne Fields

University of Michigan, 12

• Devin Bush
• Zach Gentry
• LaMarr Woodley
• Larry Foote
• Jerame Tuman
• Dean Dingman
• Chris Calloway
• David Arnold
• Craig Dunaway
• Russell Davis
• Jim Smith
• Dave Brown

Clearly the Pittsburgh Steelers have a tradition and trend of selecting players from Big Ten universities. This has reaped some incredible benefits as players like TJ Watt, Cameron Heyward and Santonio Holmes have come from Big Ten schools.

Will the Steelers look to reload with some more players from the Big Ten conference in the 2022 NFL Draft? Perhaps, as Iowa OL Tyler Linderbaum has to be on their radar at the moment, as well as some players available in later rounds such as Northwestern S Brandon Joseph and Minnesota OL John Michael Schmitz.