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If I had to make an educated guess on which college has produced the highest-earning current NFL players (not retired) I’d have to look the way of Alabama, Ohio State, and Clemson. I’d like to throw my Florida State Seminoles in the mix but they’ve fallen off the radar in the past 5 years as far as sending extremely high-profile talent to the NFL goes.
One school that would never cross my mind is the University of California-Berkeley. They’ve sent some extremely high-earning players to the NFL, most notably is Aaron Rodgers who has already brought in over $219 million in his career. DeSean Jackson has earned almost $78 million. Falcons center Alex Mack has earned nearly $70 million thus far and Cameron Jordan’s brought in $68 million.
Not only is Cal-Berkeley the college football program with the highest-earning current NFL players but they’re nearly $60 million ahead of the #2 school, and they are $127 million ahead of the University of Alabama.
The website Sportrac keeps track of the colleges with the highest-earning current NFL players and the guys at HeroSports put together a list of the schools with the top earners. Here’s how it shakes out:
1. University of California-Berkeley: $709,914,562 (15 active players)
2. University of Georgia: $650,327,605 (11 active players)
3. Louisiana State University: $596,911,831 (20 active players)
4. University of Alabama: $582,983,097 (18 active players)
5. University of Miami: $525,672,267 (17 active players)
6. University of Michigan: $486,525,695 (10 active players)
7. University of Florida: $486,160,546 (17 active players)
8. University of Oklahoma: $466,837,049 (12 active players)
9. University of South Carolina: $395,758,993 (11 active players)
10. University of Southern California: $395,758,993 (14 active players)
11. Purdue: $390,835,595 (6 active players)
Drew Brees accounts for AN ASS TON of that Purdue career earnings. Here’s what schools 12 through 30 look like as well:
12. Texas A&M
13. Florida State University (19 active players)
14. Wisconsin
15. Pittsburgh
16. Utah
17. Nebraska
18. NC State
19. Ohio State
20. Notre Dame
21. Boston College
22. Tennessee
23. Stanford
24. Miami of Ohio
25. Mississippi State
26. Texas
27. Kentucky
28. Rutgers
29. Iowa
30. Texas Christian (TCU)
If you want to see the complete list you can click here to visit Sportrac where they track it all the way down to McNeese State in last place with one current player in the NFL who has only made $501,000 throughout his career.