New England Patriots NFL football first-round draft pick offensive linesman Cole Strange walks in Gillette Stadium following a news conference, Friday. (AP photo)

The New England Patriots didn’t go old school in this NFL Draft, they went small school.

Will that be good enough? It’s worked OK in the past – see Kyle Dugger – but the jury will certainly be out.

To get one of the players from, say, a top national title contender type, the Patriots waited until their until their last pick in the sixth round to take a player from a top, top school in guard Chasen Hines from LSU and grabbed Michigan OT Andrew Stueber with their final pick on Saturday.

Is bigger not better?

The Patriots don’t care, they just wanted good football players, saying that some of their small school players did well in the college All-Star games after the season, etc., going up against another level of competition.

“Some of these guys at the FCS programs or whatnot, they played some of the FBS schools,” Patriots personnel director Matt Groh said Saturday night, “and these FCS programs, a lot of them aren’t fr ehind from some of these FBS programs, to be frank.

“There’s players everywhere, and it’s our job to go find them.”

They feel they did that. Surprisingly on Saturday they kept all their picks, so the total three-day haul was 10 players: three offensive linemen, two cornerbacks, two running backs, one wide receiver, one defensive lineman, and one quarterback.

In this draft, they wanted faster.

“You look at a couple of guys we added yesterday, a couple of the guys we added (Saturday), there’s some pretty fast times,” Groh said Saturday night. “At certain positions, there’s only so many ways to handle speed, and these guys wake up every morning and they’re fast. … We’re going to try and ut them in the best position to use that speed and open things up for us.”

They may get a future starter at guard in their controversial first round pick, Cole Strange. They likely have given QB Mac Jones a speedy target in Baylor receiver Tyquan Thornton. Corners Marcus and Jack Jones, plus running back Pierre Strong have speed – some even feel Marcus can be a receiver, as word out of Houston was he couldn’t be covered when used that way in practice.

The rest, including likely practice squader QB Bailey Zappe out of Western Kentucky, are training camp competition. The Patriots likely did their best work on the second day, with the drafting of Thornton and Marcus Jones.

Did the Patriots get better? Have they closed the gap with the Bills? To be honest, these players will definitely take time to develop.

“We’re just in phase one here getting rady to start phase two and actually put the team together,” Groh said, noting that there are still college undrafted free agents to be signed. The Patriots always find a diamond in the rough with those.

But they are supposed to find gems in these three days. It’s possible they may have as many as three with this draft, but that’s it.

“We’re happy to have a player from LSU and Arizona State and some of these big-name programs,” Groh said, “but it ultimately comes down to the kid and the skill set and how they’re going to fit in, into our culture and into our scheme.”

And, from the fans’ view, into the won-loss record.

“We try and ignore the noise around here,” Groh said. “Wee had some needs. We’ve tried to address those needs. We’ve tried to get better.”

We’ll know in about four or five months if they did.