The Los Angeles Rams came away with a thrilling preseason win over the Los Angeles Chargers Saturday night, in a game where the impact of players from schools outside of the Power Four conferences could be seen at every level. Smaller schools continue to produce some of the best NFL talent of the last couple years, and Los Angeles have show they are completely willing to take a chance on a good player despite the size of the program they come from.
The Power Four consist of schools coming from the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC conferences – those are your more nationally known programs, such as Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, etc, and typically where the highest recruited players in the country end up. However, schools outside of those four conferences, your mid-majors such as schools like Northern Illinois out of the Mid-American Conference or Eastern Washington out of Southwestern Athletic Conference, have continued to find talent and success capable of competing in NFL without the national exposer and budget of the larger schools.
LB Shaun Dolac and S Nate Valcarcel are perfect examples of two players carving out roles on the team even though they were relatively overlooked coming out of college. Both players were undrafted coming from the Mid-American Conference (MAC), with Dolac out of the University of Buffalo and Valcarcel playing under former Baltimore Ravens RB Coach Thomas Hammock at Northern Illinois. While being from rival schools in the MAC originally, the two have joined forces in Los Angeles and currently lead the team in tackles through the first two preseason games, with Dolac edging Valcarcel 13 tackles to 12. Those numbers are enough to put them in the top 20 for most tackles in the entire league through the same time span.
It’s not just the defensive side of the ball though, with players like WR Xavier Smith out of Florida A&M and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) impacting not just the offense but special teams as well. Smith took over some punt return duties for LA in 2024, and he looks to have a shot at retaining that role this coming season. He also led the team in receiving Week 1 of the preseason and currently has seven receptions, 104 yards and 14.9 average yards per catch through two games.
Even on a larger level, mid-majors have completely shaped the Rams franchise for the foreseeable future. LA’s new star receiver Davante Adams started his pro career being a second round pick from Fresno State, a mid-major from the Mountain West Conference. Starting tight end Tyler Higbee is from Western Kentucky and the lesser known Conference USA. Going back further, 2021 Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp may be a potential NFL Hall of Fame candidate down the road, but first he was a collegiate athlete from the BigSky Conference and Eastern Washington University.
Even the man who leads this team, Sean McVay, started his career as a wide receiver in the MAC with Miami (OH) University. He now resides in their “Cradle of Coaches” along side legendary coaches like Paul Brown, Sid Gillman, John Harbaugh and his own grandfather, John McVay.
The Rams success in finding players that positively contribute to their roster from smaller programs in the later round of drafts and as undrafted signees has been impressive, especially considering the impact NIL deals have had on smaller programs, something that Northern Illinois University head coach Thomas Hammock touched on earlier this week.
“In life, you’re going to make decisions,” Hammock said. “Sometimes, it’s going to work in your favor. Sometimes, it’s not. I told our team the other day, we lost all these guys. Let’s see who plays. It’s all good when people put on Twitter ‘All glory to God, I’m going in the transfer portal.’ Let’s see if they play. How many of them guys are going to play or travel or get snaps?”
“I enjoyed my college experience,” Hammock said. “I didn’t get one dime. But the lessons I learned were more valuable than any money you could ever pay me. I appreciate that because that’s long term. People are losing the fact this is short term…Don’t lose focus of the long term. Get your degree and learn valuable lessons that are going to help you in the long term of your life. That’s the whole purpose. This is a transition from being a kid to a grown up. I hope people don’t lose focus of that.”
While NIL has introduced some better opportunities for lesser exposed players to have a chance to be seen on a more national level, that happy ending does not always work out for everyone. Smaller schools are experiencing a high level of transfers from players that have a year of success, then leave for larger schools that offer more monetary advantages to them. However, as Hammock alluded too, with larger schools having larger talent pools to pull from, sometimes those transfer players end up getting lost on the depth chart and lose the opportunity to put more playing time on film that they otherwise would have had if they hadn’t transferred.
This has made finding that talent on the NFL level a little harder too, because now some players that teams would have potentially seen a 3-4 year collegiate career from are now buried on a depth chart, even though they had a year or two of real starting collegiate football success. While you can’t judge a player wanting to put themselves in a better spot financially, coaching is inherently subjective and the same chances may not open somewhere else, so the risk comes in giving up a starting role on a D1 program to transfer and potentially lose even the exposure to the NFL you had already, even if it was slightly limited.
Still, Hammock and the rest of the schools competing with NIL transfers looks at the challenge as an opportunity to give new players a chance that they may not have had otherwise, and in that way you really kind of have to look at it as a “dog eat dog world” type situation. The hope is that the best players will rise to the top, whether that’s on the college level, or smaller school players like Dolac and Valcarcel trying to carve out major roles on the Rams 53-man roster.
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