2015 Draft Will Have 86 Early Entrants, Down From 102 Last Year

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports that 76 college players applied for “special eligibility” to enter the 2015 NFL Draft while 10 graduating players with remaining eligibility will also enter the draft pool.

Last year, a record 102 college players left school early to enter the NFL Draft, which means early entrants are down close to 15 percent.

This news fits with what executive VP of NFL football operations Troy Vincent announced on Friday.

Underclassmen declaring early down 20% from 2014. We’re succeeding in our emphasis on informed decisions. pic.twitter.com/WPjaOxk0lI

— Troy Vincent (@TroyVincent23) January 16, 2015

According to Florio’s source, just six players received official first-round evaluations from the board. All of them decided to forego their college eligibility and enter the draft.

Another 20 players received second-round evaluations, with 14 of them entering the draft.

Florio mentions that 149 underclassmen who were evaluated and 123 of them were advised to return to school. Florio assumes this is because they didn’t receive either a first or second-round evaluation.

Of this group, 33 of them will enter the draft.

We’ll have a full list of these players posted at some point in the near future.