Gruden recalled Michigan State’s Earl Morrall and Ohio State’s Art Schlichter as former first-round picks, but that’s where he stopped.

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“I don’t know of too many other Big Ten quarterbacks who have had the great honor of going in the first round,” Gruden said on a conference call last week.

Gruden is right when he calls it an “alarming stat.” If you’re looking for the answer to the question, that last quarterback was Penn State’s Kerry Collins in 1995. Carolina grabbed Collins with the No. 5 pick that year.

That leads into what Gruden said about Michigan State’s Connor Cook and Penn State’s Christian Hackenberg heading into the 2016 NFL Draft, which begins Thursday.

Will they break that inglorious streak as it turns 21?

“Connor Cook in this draft, to me based on all the other prospects and the need at his position, should go in the first round,” Gruden said. “I feel the same way about Christian Hackenberg.”

That’s the Big Ten’s best hope to break that streak unless a team takes a big-time flier on Ohio State’s Cardale Jones.

Cook led Michigan State to a 34-5 record as a starter the last three seasons, and Hackenberg did his best work as a freshman under now-Texans coach Bill O’Brien. At best, both are projected to be late first-round picks if a team takes a chance.

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“Christian is very, very talented,” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “Walking through that door he has all the things that people are looking for at that level.”

The better bet of those two to be a first-round pick is Cook, and Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio agrees with Gruden about the body of work.

“I do think he has the opportunity to be a first-round pick. I think he has first-round ability,” Dantonio said. “He’s demonstrated his ability on a big stage."

So have some other former Big Ten quarterbacks, even if they weren’t first-round picks. Since 1996 — a year in which Michigan State’s Tony Banks and Ohio State’s Bobby Hoying were the first two quarterbacks selected (both after the first round) — a total of 26 quarterbacks from the Big Ten have been taken in the NFL Draft.

There are success stories. Purdue’s Drew Brees, Michigan’s Tom Brady and Wisconsin’s Russell Wilson have combined for six Super Bowl championships. Brees was taken with the first pick of the second round.

A few others weren’t drafted in the NFL Draft. Michigan State’s Brian Hoyer was undrafted in 2009, and Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor was a supplemental draft pick in 2011. Everything else has fallen short of the first round.

This year, Gruden lists Cook and Hackenberg in his top 35 NFL prospects.

“I could care less where the guys come from in terms of round,” Gruden said. “These draft shows are great and all these prognostications, where a guy should go and will go are two stories that are fun to talk about.” 

The future of Big Ten quarterback play is another one. The drought might not last too much longer. Ohio State has a Heisman Trophy candidate in J.T. Barrett, and he’s already being compared to Wilson. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh worked wonders with Jake Rudock last season and will continue to develop pro-style quarterbacks in Ann Arbor. First-year Illinois coach Lovie Smith, like Harbaugh, has an NFL coaching background.

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The conference’s best pro-style prospect for 2017 might be C.J. Beathard, who led Iowa to a 12-2 record last season. He plays for Kirk Ferentz, who was an assistant at Iowa when Collins was playing back in 1994.

“I think it could be cyclical,” Ferentz said of the quarterback play in the conference. “I always go back to 2002 when at the league meetings there was almost a crisis situation within the media about the quarterback situation within the conference.”

On the college level, Ohio State’s Craig Krenzel led the Buckeyes to the national championship and Iowa’s Brad Banks was named the AP Player of the Year that season. Krenzel was a fifth-round pick two years later.

The Big Ten has always had solid quarterbacks on the college level, which circles back to Michigan State, the defending conference champions. Hoyer, Kirk Cousins and Cook developed under Dantonio’s watch. Cook is the closest thing the conference has had to somebody breaking that streak since Brees.

“We’ve done everything we could do,” Dantonio said. “We’ve talked to some coaches, we’ve talked to some different people along the way and also talked to Connor on numerous occasions.”

That talk about Cook will stop this weekend. We’ll find out whether or not that streak will be a topic of conversation next year along the way.