2020 Slap the Sign Notre Dame Brian Kelly Era Player Draft

With NFL Draft Day upon us, our writers at Slap the Sign had some fun on Twitter last night with a Brian Kelly era player draft.

The rules of the draft were as follows: The eligible players would be only those drafted since Brian Kelly took over as the Head Football Coach plus the seven most likely candidates to be drafted in this draft. Brian Kelly took over in 2011, therefore the list started with Kyle Rudolph and ended with the seven 2020 players – Cole Kmet, Julian Okwara, Chase Claypool, Troy Pride Jr., Khalid Kareem, Alohi Gilman, and Jalen Elliott. Since 2011, Notre Dame has had 38 players selected and the list grew to 45 with the 2020 prospects.

We had eight participants from Slap the Sign, meaning every team had four picks. Trades were allowed to make things fun, and the idea was to pick guys based more on their NFL success or future success than their Notre Dame careers, along with building the foundation of a team rather than picking four guys in the same position. Just like in the NFL draft, players drop due to positional need, character concerns, etc. Lastly, with only 32 picks 13 guys were left over. After the draft, I used a random draft generator with the remaining prospects and the top eight were placed on teams to give each squad five players in total. The same draft generator decided the order of the draft.

Here is how everything played out: