Later this week, the University of Alabama football program will extend a streak, one which probably irks everyone connected with the UA program .

For the eighth consecutive year, there will be no Alabama player taken in the first round of the National Football League draft. No Crimson Tider will hear his name called by the commissioner. It isn’t exactly unprecedented – Alabama had a long first-round drought between Bobby Marlow in 1953 and Lee Roy Jordan in 1963 – but remember that the NFL only had 12 teams picking in that era, not 30-plus.

Here’s another unsettling way to look at it. Since Alabama last had a first-rounder – Chris Samuels and Shaun Alexander, both in the 2000 draft – there have been 46 SEC players selected in the first round. (A conservative guess is that six more SEC alumni will go in this year’s first round, pushing that total to 52.) Every other school in the SEC has had at least one first-round choice in that span with the exception of Mississippi State. Georgia has eight in that same span of time. LSU has had seven and will add a couple of more this week. Ole Miss has had four.

In any given year, a single first-round pick doesn’t speak volumes about the state of a program. The first player from the state of Alabama to be chosen this year will almost certainly by Troy cornerback Leodis McKelvin, but that doesn’t mean the Trojans are a better program than Auburn or Alabama. But when a trend stretches to eight years, it’s not simply an anomaly. It’s not that the Crimson Tide hasn’t had some good players – linebacker Demeco Ryans was almost a first-rounder in 2006, and subsequent events have proved that he should have been one. But there have not been nearly enough to sustain success.

There is also another way to look at things next Saturday. It’s entirely possible that, for a second straight year, no Alabama player will be chosen in the top 100 picks (essentially the first three rounds.) That hasn’t happened in consecutive years since the 1969-1971 drafts, reflective of the temporary dip in between Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s great run. It’s possible that DJ Hall might go in the first three rounds, but that’s not consistent with what the current projections are saying.

Again, the NFL draft isn’t the single greatest predictor of a college team’s success – if it were infallible, USC would play for the national championship every year. On the other hand, USC does contend at that level just about every year, and taken over the course of a decade – and there is no guarantee that Alabama’s first-round drought will end in 2009, either – it does tell a tale about talent.

It’s impossible to assign a single cause to the Crimson Tide’s long ride through the desert of decent-but-not-great talent. The dearth of first-rounders actually started in the classes recruited before the Tide’s second NCAA probation hit. (Alexander and Samuels, ironically, were both signed in the wake of Alabama’s previous probation). But it’s obvious that the NCAA was a factor. There is no way to lay the blame at the feet of a single coach. Mike Shula didn’t recruit any first-rounders (at least not yet, though it is possible that Andre Smith or Antoine Caldwell or someone else could blossom and change that in the future.) Dennis Franchione didn’t recruit any, either. Neither did Mike DuBose, surprisingly.

Why? The best answer is that there was an accumulation of factors, accelerated by the 2002 probation but not limited to that one source. Then, as problems accumulated, the situation became self-perpetuating, with average records and low NFL draft visibility leading, in turn, to struggles in recruiting. It’s an insidious cycle, and it was a singular achievement that Nick Saban appears to have reversed the downward spiral with his first full recruiting year. (Time will tell if there really are any first-rounders in the incoming recruiting class, although most Alabama fans assume there are a few.)

Eventually, the drought will end. In the best dreams of those who follow Alabama, it will end with a deluge of draft-worthy talent. But once again, this year’s NFL draft day will be most noticeable for the sound of silence.

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of the Tuscaloosa News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0225.