Were Mike Anderson, Bevan, Grezaffi, & Davis really that talented?

I was just looking over the era of LSU football from 1951 to 1975, and I was struck by how low some famous LSU players went in the NFL Draft during that period:

Some Notable LSU Players in the Draft
(Selection #, Position, Year of NFL Draft, Name)
184, DB, 1968, Sammy Grezaffi
211, RB, 1975, Brad Davis
216, LB, 1971, Mike Anderson
421, DB, 1970, George Bevan

Then I got to thinking about that old thread of mine from January 2011 about how the HBCUs started totally outclassed LSU in the NFL Drafts from about the spring of '66 to the spring of '74. (Collis Temple Sr. was chosen as a sort of throw-away pick in the late rounds of the spring of 1974, and Mike Williams was taken as the 22nd pick overall in 1975.)

That's when all these guys played, but unlike the LSU star backs of the late 50's and early 60's (Taylor, Cannon, Robinson, Rabb, Stovall, Harris, Gros, Branch, etc.), they didn't seem to be highly regarded by NFL scouts. I'm just trying to figure out why that was.

There were of course legit super-talented stars from that time at LSU (see Tommy Casanova, Bert Jones, and Andy Hamilton), but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to measure Anderson-Bevan-Grezaffi-Davis against former LSU players from the 1950s and early 1960s, like maybe a Dennis Gaubatz--or even a player from the 1970s, like a Bo Harris who was picked 77th in the 1975 NFL Draft.

If anybody has input, comments, suggestions, just let it fly.



Sam Grezaffi, #30



Brad Davis, #48



George Bevan, #42



Mike Anderson, #45



Bo Harris's 1980 Topps card