USFL Territorial Draft

The United States Football League besides having a traditional Collegiate Draft, it also practiced an annual Territorial Draft, in which teams from the league would have "protected" colleges from their respective states, from which they could select a number of players without them being subjected to the regular Collegiate Draft.[1]

Procedure and rules

Objective

This process was conceived by USFL founder David Dixon, in order to keep geographic interest in the franchises. With the Territorial Draft, local college or professional football players, would end up playing for the state's USFL team.[2]

Eligibility

It started with each team being assigned a 5 college pool that were deemed to be in the team's region, from which it selected 26 players. In the 1984 USFL Territorial Draft, each team had 20 selections to accommodate the new six expansion franchises.

In the 1985 USFL Territorial Draft, it was raised to 6 schools per team (25 selections), which was speculated in the media as a way to allow the New Jersey Generals to sign quarterback Doug Flutie.[3]

Process

The territorial selections were conducted by the teams, who communicated their choices to the league's office in writing. Once "drafted", a player's USFL rights belonged to that club, and were ineligible from selection in the regular college draft.

The league's office in turn would send out these lists to all teams, prohibiting them from drafting these players in the regular USFL Collegiate Draft.

Territorial drafts
DraftDateLocation
1983January 4, 1983Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York
1984January 4, 1984The Roosevelt Hotel, New York
1985January 3, 1985Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York
1986April 23, 1986

References
  1. "U.S.F.L. SEEKS STARS IN DRAFT". Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  2. "Territories Assigned for USFL Draft". Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  3. "USFL Draft : Generals Pick Flutie; L.A. Selects Del Rio". Retrieved July 27, 2019.
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