http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/stewart_mandel/04/23/2008draft/index.html?eref=T1

[size=12pt]Educated guess: College expert takes stab at predicting prospects[/size]
Stewart Mandel
Posted: Wednesday April 23, 2008 10:52AM;
Updated: Wednesday April 23, 2008 12:04PM

Regular readers of my College Football Mailbag know well my feelings about the NFL Draft process. I even devoted an entire chapter of a book to mocking the charade. Rather than rehash all that here, I'd rather call to your attention two recent quotes I found particularly amusing:

"Are you kidding me? It's not like we play the games in shorts."
-- A major college assistant, speaking to me about the NFL's absurd overemphasis on combines and 40 times.

"Half [of mock drafts] are put together by NFL writers who watched two Notre Dame games at the airport bar and the second half of the Sugar Bowl."
-- Dan Patrick in last week's Sports Illustrated.

My annual overrated/underrated list is based almost entirely on me reading the aforementioned mock drafts and projections and thinking to myself: "Are you serious? Are they really talking about the same guy I watched in college?"

The answer, of course, is no. In most cases they're talking about a guy the scouts watched in a combine drill and downgraded because he "doesn't use his hands properly at the point of attack." (Try using that phrase in an everyday conversation.)
Good article here from someone who watches nothing but college football.

=Z=