Per Sporting News, here are the by-position draft rankings of N.D. players and some N.D. opponents from 2002 and 2003. The service academies, of course, do not produce players who can be drafted immediately. Rutgers appears not to have anyone being seriously scouted for the draft.

Notre Dame

Lopienski (FB 11)
Battle (WR 22)
Black (T 11)
Curtin (T 31)
Faine (C 1)
Walton (CB 9)
Sapp (S 8)

U.S.C.

Palmer (QB 1)
Fargas (RB 8)
McCullough (RB 18)
MacKenzie (RB 21)
Pierson (FB 23)
Kelly (WR 13)
Riley (DT 23)
Polamalu (S 2)

Boston College

St. Pierre (QB 11)
Comella (FB 8)
Koppen (C 4)
Garay (DE 19)

Washington State

Gesser (QB 12)
Bush (WR 24)
Long (DT 4)
Trufant (CB 2)

B.Y.U.

Engemann (QB 15)
Mahe (WR 43)
Nead (TE 6)
Reid (TE 20)
Rykert (T 25)

Stanford

Carter (RB 15)
Moore (FB 1)
Johnson (WR 8)
Harris (T 2)
Schindler (G 14)
Leonard (DT 16)
Branch (S 21)

Michigan

Askew (FB 5)
Bellamy (WR 23)
Joppru (TE 4)
Petruziello (G 16)
Orr (DE 22)
Rumishek (DE 37)
Hobson (OLB 5)
Nelson (CB 38)
June (S 13)
Drake (S 16)
Curry (S 22)
 

Syracuse

Davis (FB 9)
Smith (ILB 5)

Maryland

Lynch (FB 10)
Killian (FB 19)
Wike (C 9)
Roundtree (DE 42)
Henderson (ILB 1)
Barnard (P 2)

Michigan State

Moss (FB 12)
Rogers (WR 1)
Lovett (WR 55)
Booker (T 26)
Henry (CB 22)
Wright (S 15)

N.C. State

Jackson (FB 17)
Berton (TE 22)
Kooistra (T 37)
Martin (DT 18)
Price (OLB 14)
Holt (S 4)

Florida State

Boldin (WR 4)
Gardner (WR 10)
Morgan (WR 39)
B. Williams (T 4)
T. Williams (T 15)
Holland (G 3)
Mirambeau (C 14)
Jackson (DE 9)

Pittsburgh

Anderson (G 25)
Hayes (ILB 3)
Cox (CB 13)

Purdue

Mruczkowski (C 10)

In terms, then, of the total number of players worth ranking for draft purposes, it stacks up this way: Michigan (11), F.S.U. (8), U.S.C. (8), Stanford (7), N.D. (7), M.S.U. (6), N.C. State (6), Maryland (6), B.Y.U. (5), W.S.U. (4), B.C. (4), Pittsburgh (3), Syracuse (2), Purdue (1).

Teams that appear to have had a surprising amount of senior talent despite their poor play are Stanford, B.Y.U. and M.S.U. All three of these lose some very high caliber players and didn't come close to making a bowl (recall that B.Y.U. was beaten by 50 or so points by Air Force the week before Air Force played N.D.).

Michigan, F.S.U. and U.S.C. all suffer very, very heavy graduation (using "graduation" in the loose sense of completion of eligibility)losses. Michigan's is mostly just on the volume of reasonably good players moving on. U.S.C. loses Palmer, Fargas, Polamalu and Kelly all of whom are certain first day picks (Palmer is nearly certain to be taken first; Fargas might go in the 1st round; Polamalu and Kelly are both projected for the 2nd round) and four other important players. F.S.U. is starting to take on the look of a team on the downhill slide, sort of like N.D. circa 1998 and 1999. There appears to be a lot of talent going out and a reasonable amount coming in, but probably not enough coming in to make up for what's going out.

Washington State doesn't have so much in terms of volume going out, but the quality of it and the importance of those players is very high. Long, Trufant and Gesser were three of the most important and best players in that program's history and will be very hard to replace immediately. B.C.'s situation is somewhat similar, though the quality of its departing players is not as high.

N.D.'s situation looks most similar to Maryland's and N.C. State's. All are losing 6 or 7 players with one or two of them rated very highly.

Pittsburgh and Purdue both were fairly good last year (particularly Pittsburgh) and suffer minimal losses. Both of those games are on the road next year; those teams could prove to be difficult match-ups. Syracuse seems to be suffering through a fairly low ebb in terms of talent.