—Can we all agree that Mel Kiper and Todd McShay’s opinions should be taken for entertainment purposes only?  They are showmen.  Very little of what they say in the weeks and months leading up to the draft has any bearing in reality.  The draft is a very tricky thing and no one really knows how it is going to turn out.  What amazes me even more is these guys’ picks for the No. 1 prospect in 2010.  Kiper tabs Eric Berry, while McShay chooses Sam Bradford.  Now, look.  Those two are both excellent prospects and will be first round selections (in Berry’s case, a top five pick).  But a defensive back has never gone No. 1 in the draft and, if it does happen, I think is just as likely to be USC’s Taylor Mays–who has the other-worldly measurables the NFL craves–as Berry.  As for Bradford, I doubt he survives the scrutiny of the combine and evaluation process;  he is likely to be revealed as a system guy to many and the NFL loves to nitpick.  This will likely not prevent him from being a first rounder, but it will prevent him being taken first, in my opinion.

To me, it’s fairly obvious who will be the first player taken in the next draft.  It will be (barring injury) the guy who was the best player on the field in the BCS Title Game:  Sooner defensive tackle Gerald McCoy.

—We hear a lot about how many players don’t fit into NFL schemes because they play in the spread in college.  Well, wouldn’t it behoove the NFL to start playing more spread and get a quicker payout from the talent it drafts?  Oh, right.  Supposedly things like the spread and the, uh, Wildcat, don’t work in the NFL.  Just like the spread couldn’t work in the SEC and Urban Meyer was doomed to fail….hmmmm.

—First-Round Picks I Liked:  Mark Sanchez to the Jets. I think he made the right choice to come out early.  He’ll get $20 million over the next year and be in a major market.  And he’s a talent who will have a pretty decent team to work with, unlike Matt Stafford.   Andre Smith to the Bengals. There was a lot of talk by the usual suspects about how much he was dropping in the draft.  Yup, sure.  This guy is a great player and will do well, mansierre or not.  Michael Crabtree to the 49ers. He’s no J.J. Stokes.  He could become the face of this franchise one day.  Great pickup for the 49ers.  Percy Harvin to Minnesota. Harvin paired with Adrian Peterson will make this team as fun to watch as any in the league.  I might even have to tune in.

—Steal of the Draft:  Chris Wells to Arizona. The knock on him is that he isn’t durable.  But neither were Adrian Peterson or Cadillac Williams (both top 7 picks) when they were in college (and neither has been durable in the NFL).  Wells doesn’t catch the ball, but neither did Peterson or Williams, really.   Now, he’s not Peterson (who is?), but he’s better than Caddy.  He’ll be the featured runner in a boffo offense and he should shine right away.  My early pick for Rookie of the Year.

—The Worst Picks of the 1st round:  Darius Heyward-Bey by the Raiders.  But we all knew this.  He’s a shiney hood ornament for a lousy clunker of a franchise.  Tyson Jackson to the Chiefs. Good player, but not third-pick-of-the-draft good, methinks.  Jeremy Maclin to the Eagles. Seems a bit redundant with DeSean Jackson there already.  Although, he could be a good insurance policy in case MeSean strikes.

—USC has 21 picks the last two years and yet lost (in 2007) to a team (Stanford) that has zero picks that last two years.   The point:  Coaching matters.

Of the “pre-preseason” top 25s that have been issued in the past couple months, there seems to be a consensus that the Florida Gators, who lose Percy Harvin going into '09 but retain nearly everyone else of note, will once again be the team to beat; Texas and Oklahoma are also expected to return as powerhouses. Below that, though, the selections range from the brave to the downright silly. Among the most inexplicable:

•Tony Barnhart (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) was the first out of the gate, throwing up a top 25 literally the same night as the BCS National Championship Game, and it shows. Barnhart has Alabama in the top five despite the fact that they lose their starting QB (and were less than a week removed from getting punked by Utah), Oklahoma State at #7, Florida State at #12, and Vanderbilt at #25. I realize you're an SEC guy, but jeez, Tony. He also provided an object lesson in the dangers of sticking your neck out too early by putting Pittsburgh at #10 based on “running back LeSean McCoy and seven starters on defense coming back”; McCoy declared for the NFL draft less than a week later.

•Dennis Dodd (CBS Sports) shared Barnhart's optimism for Alabama (#4) and pumped Kansas at #14, saying “any team with quarterback Todd Reesing is capable of anything.” Anything except for winning the Big 12 North, evidently.

•Matt Hayes (The Sporting News) will see your Notre Dame optimism and raise you: He's got the Irish at #11 based on “the confidence QB Jimmy Clausen gained from his play at Hawaii.” Yes, there's nothing like beating up on the nation's 88th-ranked pass-efficiency defense in a bowl game to mold a player into a leader. Hayes also has Ole Miss at #5 and Auburn at #24, which would make him one of exactly four people in the country who think Auburn will be better with Gene Chizik than they were with Tommy Tuberville (and the other three are Gene Chizik, Jay Jacobs, and Jay Gogue).

•Stewart Mandel (SI.com), like Hayes, has Ole Miss at #5, and like Barnhart he gets burned by early personnel assumptions gone wrong: He puts Oklahoma State at #6, explaining that “nearly every key player is back” on the Cowboy offense, but three of OSU's top four receivers left the program for one reason or another within a month of Mandel posting his list. He's also got Florida State at #18.

•Jon Wilner (San Jose Mercury News) says he updated his list on January 21, which makes one wonder what his original rankings looked like. He's got Florida State at #7 and Oklahoma State at #6, saying he actually dropped the Cowboys because he's “now counting [the Oklahoma game] as a loss for OSU.” The Sooners, last seen piling 61 points on the Cowboys, are grateful for your generosity, sir. Wilner also thinks Pitt and West Virginia will be better without LeSean McCoy and Pat White, respectively — he's got both in his top 25 despite the fact that neither team cracked the final coaches' poll of 2008.

•College Football News is buying into the ACC big-time in '09: They've got North Carolina at #9, Georgia Tech at #11, and Clemson at #15. And based on their color-coding system, CFN thinks Miami “should be worse” than they were last year, yet they've still got the Hurricanes, 7-6 and unranked at the end of 2008, at #19 on their list. Strangely, the one ACC team to get downgraded relative to last season is the defending conference champions — Virginia Tech winds up just one slot ahead of the 'Canes.

•Mark Schlabach (ESPN.com) has also revised an earlier list, but he's still got Alabama at #4 despite openly conceding what huge losses John Parker Wilson and Andre Smith will be; he's also got Notre Dame at #22.

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Doug Gillet is the proprietor of Hey Jenny Slater and a regular contributor to Dr. Saturday.

The Trojans, meanwhile, have the luxury of simulating Ohio State's golden child recruit with their own golden child recruit:

USC tailback Joe McKnight played quarterback on the scout team Tuesday to emulate Ohio State freshman Terrelle Pryor, but not just because Pryor is fast.

When Pryor played in high school, he sometimes had issues with fumbles, so the Trojans' defense tried to knock the ball loose from McKnight,who has had his own fumbling issues at USC.
[...]
"We know [Pryor] is going to play," Carroll said. "They're trying to get him ready. They're not going to back off."

Actually, if OSU's been holding back on offense, who knows what it's going to pull out of the bag. It's a lock Pryor will play (29 snaps in the first two games), but put me in the camp that thinks if Ohio State needs Pryor to make a difference, it's probably in more trouble than a freshman who's not Herschel Walker or Adrian Peterson can get the Buckeyes out of.

• Wait, aren't you the guys we should never trust, ever? The San Jose Mercury News' Jon Wilner shows the benefit of being around a beat a while: you start to recognize names. And when Wilner heard the defenders of the controversial Jake Locker unsportsmanlike call in Washington's loss to BYU were Dave Cutaia and Larry Farina, it triggered a couple memories:

The biggest problem, not only with what happened in Husky Stadium but also with the response from [Pac-10 offices], is credibility.

The men involved have zero:

The game referee, Farina, was in charge of the worst-officiated Pac-10 game of the ‘07 season: Oregon State-Washington, in which the officials lost control, fights broke out, players were ejected and Yvenson Bernard’s knee was clearly, obviously down before he fumbled at the goalline.

Everyone saw it, and yet Farina and his gang missed it -- missed it so badly they were banned from working any bowl games in 2007.

And then there’s Cutaia, the Pac-10’s coordinator of officials who defended the Locker call. He was only the lead ref for the Oregon-Oklahoma game.

Cutaia and his crew bungled that game like no game has ever been bungled -- so badly the Pac-10 apologized to Oklahoma and Cutaia was suspended for a game by the league.
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Emphasis in original; OSU/U-Dub link added.

Pac Ten coaches weighed in on the call, and they agree with you (most of you): it was a stupid call. Pete Carroll says it on video here.

• . Texas' game with Arkansas will be postponed until Sept. 27th as Hurricane Ike bears down on the Lonestar coast. Austin is too far inland to be rocked on a hurricane scale, but it's going to be getting mighty wet around here Saturday night, I tell you what -- although for Arkansas, if the Hogs are really thinking, the slop might be the only hope.

But LSU, which had been eyeing Ike warily its own self, will kick off as expected in Tiger Stadium at 7 p.m., which will only feel like a hurricane for North Texas.

Quickly . . .

Displaced Trojan Carson Palmer can't find a bet on Saturday's game. . . . Maybe Alabama's offense will be back on track with Andre Smith back in the lineup against Western Kentucky. . . . Stephen Garcia could be in South Carolina's quarterback mix against Georgia, or, you know, could not be. Nobody at USC practice is telling. . . . Kansas is lining up a redshirt freshman, Jeff Spikes, across from South Florida all-American George Selvie. . . . Nebraska's Lydon Murtha will start for the first time this season against New Mexico State, off a nasty "leg infection." . . . Suspended Maurice Evans and Abe Koroma are still in limbo for Penn State's game Saturday with, eh, Syracuse. . . . UCLA still has no idea what the rest of the script has in store for Kevin Craft. . . . And outlets in Oklahoma and Colorado are remembering Eddie Crowder, ex-Sooner quarterback and Colorado coach/athletic director, who died Tuesday of complications from leukemia.

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Photo of Joe McKnight via Getty Images; Photo of Eddie Crowder via the Boulder Daily Camera.

An awesome linebacker prospect out of Texas shocked everyone by announcing he was going to USC over Texas A&M and Florida State. Welcome Michael Morgan.

Top prospects that were considering USC, Andre Smith and Gerald McCoy, committed to Alabama and Oklahoma, respectively.

More updates to come....

Here's a run-down of potential players to welcome to the Trojan family:

5-star offensive lineman Andre Smith - Supposively gave word to hometown favorite Alabama months ago, but he could be a signing day surprise. COMMITTED TO ALABAMA.

5-star defensive tackle Gerald McCoy - This Oklahoma native would be a huge steal from Stoops. COMMITTED TO OKLAHOMA.

5-star running back C.J. Spiller - A country boy from Florida. Can he and his family make the adjustment to big city living? Pete Carroll certainly made an impression on his mom. He could become the 2nd C.J. of the Trojans' 2006 recruiting class. COMMITTED TO CLEMSON.

5-star running back Stafon Johnson - Straight out of Dorsey. This kid should be a lock to stay in LA. COMMITTED TO USC.

5-star offensive lineman Stephen Schilling - USC has a better chance at this guy then Andre Smith. Although the Trojans would like both after losing underclassmen Winston Justice and Fred Matua. COMMITTED TO MICHIGAN.

4-star running back Michael Goodson - This kid has Reggie Bush-like moves as evidenced in the Army All-American game. COMMITTED TO TEXAS A&M.

4-star running back LeSean McCoy - Likely to remain home and attend Penn State, but he's still on the Trojans' radar since the Trojans' backfield will be playing on Sundays next season.COMMITTED TO MIAMI.

4-star linebacker Michael Morgan - There's nothing like stealing top talent out of Texas. See Emmanuel Moody. COMMITTED TO USC.

4-star defensive back Devin Ross - Supposively the Trojans were out of the running, but are now back on the block. COMMITTED TO ARIZONA.

*All rankings based on Rivals.com