Naylor: A closer look into where the CFL finds its talent

Dave Naylor

TSN Football Insider

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Where does Canadian Football League talent come from – be it here in Canada or south of the border?

Trying to answer that question led me to dust off an old idea this summer by doing a deep dive, breaking down the Week 1 CFL rosters of all nine teams.

Week 1 may be just a snapshot but it’s one that tells us which schools in Canada produce the most players, which conferences in the NCAA send the most talent north over the border, and what percentage of Canadians in the CFL are developed at home versus going to the U.S. for their college football experience.

So, what did we find? Here are a few of the revelations, some surprising and others not so much.

Two programs in Quebec represent the biggest change we’ve seen in CFL player development over the past 25 years

The University of Montreal led all Canadian schools with 14 players on opening-week CFL rosters, two more than any other school – one of which is Laval with 12.

The fact that the Montreal Carabins football program did not exist 25 years ago and Laval’s didn’t exist 30 years ago illustrates how quickly the development of French-Canadian talent has emerged over that time.  

With 26 players collectively, the impact of the two programs has been immense, representing 11.5 per cent of all Canadian players in the league and 17.1 per cent of all players coming out of U Sports programs.

The rest of the top five include Guelph, which tied with Laval at 12, followed by Wilfrid Laurier and Alberta at 11 and 10, respectfully.

Among conferences, Ontario University Athletics leads the country with 58 players, followed by Canada West with 49, Quebec with 36, and the Atlantic University Sports with 14.

NCAA power conferences still produce the most CFL talent

Big-time schools from big-time conferences still provide more talent than any level of American college football, although that number may be decreasing.

Again, we’re going by feel on this because of the lack of historical data, but it certainly feels as though there are more players coming from mid-majors or the Football Championship Subdivision, the lower tier of NCAA Division I, which are not the schools that play Saturday’s on national television before crowds of 90,000 or more.

The four power conferences – the ACC (31) , Big 12 (30) , Big 10 (24) and SEC (18) make up the top four conferences producing CFL players with a total of 103 players.

Among mid-Majors, the American Athletic Conference (16), the Mid-American Conference (16), the Sunbelt (14) and the Mountain West Conference (20) stand out.

There are 59 players from the FCS Division I level, represented by 12 different conferences, the most productive being the Big Sky and Missouri Valley with 11 each.

NCAA Division II has 18 players represented on opening-week CFL rosters, while Division III has just six.

It will be interesting to see if the CFL can maintain its ability to draw talent from college football’s power conferences in an era of players earning college salaries far more than what they would be offered in the CFL.

Power conference players are also most likely to be NFL-focussed and thus rather wait for opportunities as opposed to trying to make a career in Canada, especially as the wage gap between the two leagues continues to grow.

There is a five-way tie for which U.S. school produces the most CFL talent this season

Memphis, Wake Forest, North Dakota, Houston and Oregon make up the list of five NCAA schools that had five players each on CFL opening week rosters.

As we don’t like ties, I scoured the nine practice rosters looking for a way to break the logjam and found one player from the University of Memphis, so we will crown the Tigers the 2025 winner for most CFL players from an American school.

Only one of those schools – Oregon – is from a Power Four Conference.

Roughly a third of Canadian players in the CFL come through the NCAA

Of the Canadian players in the CFL to open this season, 31.3 per cent played NCAA football before turning pro.

Without comparative data from the past, we’ll have to assume that number is higher than it once was, and there are several reasons to believe that is the case.

More and more young players in Canada are jumping to high school in the U.S. in search of better competition, coaching and exposure to help them land NCAA scholarships.

Anecdotally, we’ve also seen more players playing bigger roles in better programs.

That said, the importance of U Sports to the CFL is not to be diminished, with 68.7 per cent of Canadians in the CFL arriving via the Canadian university game.

* - Just 2.2 per cent of Canadian players (5) came to the CFL directly from junior football (CJFL).

Canadian schools we were surprised to find outside the top 5

Western University has been a consistent powerhouse in Canadian university football but only has seven current CFL players, which is surprising for a program that has played in three of the past seven Vanier Cup games.

McMaster and Manitoba, two schools that have pumped a lot of talent to the CFL over the past 25 years, are also at a low ebb, represented by just three players each.

Players from Atlantic schools have a very small presence in the CFL

There are just 14 CFL players produced by the five schools in Atlantic University Sports, led by Saint Mary’s with six. That’s by far the fewest of the four conferences in Canada.

Ontario, with 11 teams, leads all conferences with 59 current players. The West and its six teams contribute 49 players, while Quebec’s five teams add 36.

CFL teams like to draft and sign players from schools geographically close to them

One thing the roster research shows is the inclination of teams to draft or sign players who’ve gone to school close by.

For example, the only four CFL players from the University of Ottawa all play for the Ottawa Redblacks. The Montreal Alouettes have five former members of the Montreal Carabins, the Saskatchewan Roughriders have four players from the University of Regina, Hamilton has four from the University of Guelph, Calgary has three former Calgary Dinos, and Edmonton has three former University of Alberta Golden Bears.

Click here for the complete breakdown of players compiled by Dave Naylor.