December CFL Scouting Bureau list is heavy on Dinos: will that continue post-Blake Nill?

CFL draft observers have been well-advised to pay attention to the University of Calgary Dinos over the last few years. The Dinos won six Canada West titles in a row (and three national semifinals) before losing to Manitoba this year, but even more importantly from a CFL perspective, they've continually cranked out a remarkable pipeline of top draft picks, with 17 players chosen in the last four drafts. Calgary had two players selected in the first round and four overall in 2011, one in the first round, two in the second round and four overall in 2012 and three in the first round (including #1 pick Linden Gaydosh) and five overall in 2013. Last year marked a down year for their draft pipeline, with only two Dinos picked (in the third and seventh rounds), but overall, Calgary's been one of the best CIS schools recently at producing CFL talent, and they currently have more active CFL players than any other school. That trend appears set to continue for at least this year, with four Dinos appearing in the CFL's December Scouting Bureau list of the Top 20 draft-eligible players (more players than from any other school) and two of them placing in the top 10. With long-time Dinos' head coach Blake Nill moving on to UBC this week, though, will Calgary still be as much of a football factory?

The four Dinos selected for this list are all deserving. One of the most interesting is offensive lineman Sean McEwen, a Calgary native who rose from 14th in the September list to sixth in this one. The 6'3'', 297-pound McEwen clearly impressed evaluators (the Scouting Bureau rankings are a composite from CFL scouts, player personnel directors and general managers) down the stretch, even beating out teammate and fellow lineman Sukh Chungh (who rose from eighth to seventh). That has the two Dinos as the third- and fourth-highest ranked offensive linemen respectively, and as the top two from CIS schools (the other two are top-ranked Brett Boyko from UNLV and second-ranked Alex Mateas from UConn). Given the omnipresent CFL desire for Canadian offensive linemen (one arguably exacerbated this past year by the Ottawa expansion draft, thinning out each other team's depth), these guys could go quite high in May's draft. Dinos' linebacker Adam Konar (16) and receiver Jake Harty (19) are also interesting options. McEwen and Konar were selected as first-team All-Canadians (part of Calgary's school-record nine nods), while Chungh was named a second-team All-Canadian. They all may have bright professional futures ahead.

An important question for the Dinos' future is how much of their success in recruiting and developing top talent was about Nill, though. If you look at the team's 2014 roster, more of their players come from Calgary itself than any other city, and many of the rest come from elsewhere in Alberta. A coach still has to land them, which can be difficult in the national recruiting environment CIS is moving towards, and Nill's shown plenty of prowess as a recruiter with both the Dinos and the Saint Mary's Huskies, so his role shouldn't be understated. He and his staff also undoubtedly played a significant role in transforming players from raw recruits into top prospects. Still, Calgary has built an impressive program that shouldn't utterly collapse with Nill's departure, and it should be very helpful for them that there's such top talent available in their city and their province. Not all of that talent's going to leave just because Nill did.

Still, much may depend on who the Dinos pick to succeed Nill. As Yahoo's Neate Sager wrote earlier this week, a top internal candidate may be offensive line coach Steve Buratto, which could be a very interesting move. Buratto coached in the CFL for over three decades and as head coach, he led the B.C. Lions to the 2000 Grey Cup in one of the most improbable CFL stories ever. Buratto joined the team as receivers coach shortly before the season, was promoted to head coach after six weeks when Greg Mohns left for the XFL, led the team to a 6-6 record that had them finish the year 8-10, but then took them on a playoff run to become the first team to win a Grey Cup with a losing record. He also has experience as both an offensive and defensive coordinator at the CFL level, as well as a position coach at multiple levels, and several CFL guys have found success in CIS recently (Vanier Cup winner Danny Maciocia and Vanier runner-up Greg Marshall amongst them), so he might be a good pick.

Whoever Calgary goes with will have big shoes to fill, though. They'll have to continue Nill's recruiting success, picking up the best players from Calgary and the rest of Alberta and going further afield when needed, and they'll also have to continue his success at developing players. The Dinos' impressive recent history and significant numbers of alumni in the CFL will help, as will the vast amounts of talent coming out of Calgary high schools, but it's still going to be a challenge. We'll see if they can keep their pipeline to the pros intact.