Passing The Time

Each day is passing slower and slower. It seems like it has been forever since the 2010 Draft occurred. It is taking even longer for Training Camp to arrive. I had several ideas in mind for new articles. I ended up scrapping all of them. I was having trouble thinking of what to write. However, I finally came up with an idea. I thought it would be interesting to see how unified our Broncos are. Confused? Allow me to clarify. I thought it would be interesting to see how many players came from the same college/conference. Team chemistry is everything in the NFL. The more you play alongside someone, the more comfortable you are with them on the field. Some of our Broncos played together in college and now find themselves alongside each other once again in the pros. Keep in mind that some players may have played at the same college, but were in totally different time periods. Intrigued?


Jump with me

Starting from the most to the least:

Notre Dame-6 (David Bruton, Paul Duncan, Ryan Harris, Kyle McCarthy, Eric Olsen, Brady Quinn)

Florida-4 (Jabar Gaffney, Jarvis Moss, Tim Tebow, Marcus Thomas)

Colorado-4 (Justin Bannan, Riar Greer, Daniel Graham, Tyler Polumbus)

Clemson-3 (Kevin Alexander, Brian Dawkins, Dustin Fry)

California-3 (J.J. Arrington, Devon Bishop, Syd'Quan Thompson)

Nebraska-3 (Correll Buckhalter, Rush Hochstein, Le Kevin Smith)

Oklahoma St-3 (Perrish Cox, Ryan McBean, Jamal Williams)

Kentucky-3 (Braxton Kelley, Dicky Lyons, Wesley Woodyard)

UCLA-3 (Bruce Davis, Korey Bosworth, Matthew Willis)

Minnesota-2 (Eric Decker, Darrell Reid,

South Carolina-2 (Andre' Goodman, Kenny McKinley)

Wisconsin-2 (Nick Greisen, Jeff Stehle)

Miami-2 (Baraka Atkins, D.J. Williams)

Tennessee-2 (Robert Ayers, Britton, Colquit)

Purdue-2 (Akin Ayodele, Kyle Orton)

Georgia-2 (Champ Bailey, Knowshon Moreno)

Mississippi-2 (Bruce Hall, Cassius Vaughn)

Mississippi State-2 (Ronald Fields, Mario Haggan)

The rest of the players on our team come from different colleges. I found it surprising that we had so many Fighting Irishmen and so many Gators. I didn't really realize we had so many players from those schools. It pleases me to see we had a good amount of Colorado boys.

Now, here are the amount of players that were in the same conference. The players that I did not list are included.

Players from same conference:

SEC- 17

Big 12- 13

ACC- 12

Big 10- 11

Pac 10-10

Independent- 7

As you can see, the SEC is the real power house with the Big 12 and ACC not too far behind. Quite a few Big 10 and Pac 10 players. With the Pac 10 soon to become the Pac 16, expect that conference number to jump up considerably in the coming years.

As I mentioned earlier, some of these players played at the same college, but at different times. So who played together? Glad you asked.

Robert Ayers and Britton Colquit (Tennessee)

Akin Ayodele and Kyle Orton (Purdue)

Justin Bannan and Daniel Graham (Colorado)

Devon Bishop and Syd'Quan Thompson (California)

Korey Bosworth, Bruce Hall, and Matthew Willis (UCLA)

David Bruton, Paul Duncan, Seth Olsen, and Kyle McCarthy (Notre Dame)

Ryan Harris and Brady Quinn (Notre Dame)

Marcus Thomas, Tim Tebow, and Jarvis Moss (Florida)

Dustin Fry and Kevin Alexander (Clemson)

Baraka Atkins and D.J. Williams (Miami)

Russ Hochstein and Correll Buckhalter (Nebraska)

Perrish Cox and Ryan McBean (Oklahoma St.)

Braxton Kelley, Dicky Lyons, and Wesley Woodyard (Kentucky)

Mario Haggan and Ronald Fields (Mississippi St.)

Bruce Hall and Cassius Vaughn (Mississippi)

So as you can see, a good bunch of players actually did play together. If you were to count up how many people played against each other, the number would be even bigger. My point is that the chemistry on our team should be pretty strong. We have plenty of people who are familiar with one another. We have plenty of people who played against each other. The key is meshing all of that together into a winning organization. The players are ready to battle, the coaches are ready to yell, and MHR is ready to follow every second. Training Camp is coming. One thing is for sure, if we don't get a USC guy on the Broncos soon, I'm going to be pissed.