thedoctor

kiper's latest first rounder mock. posted yesterday on espninsider. wouldn't mind seeing the bears get pope. i like him better than lewis: Here's my first-round projection for the 2006 NFL draft. I put this list together by taking a look at the general area where each player should go, then placing the player on a team where he filled one of that particular team's top three needs. In this projection, there are 17 underclassmen in the first round, with Reggie Bush and Vince Young leading the way as the first and third picks of the draft. This is my first projection, but it won't be my last of this season. I will submit another first-round projection after the Senior Bowl, followed by one after the NFL Combine. 2006 Draft Projection * denotes underclassman 1. Houston -- *Reggie Bush, RB, USC 2. New Orleans -- Matt Leinart, QB, USC 3. Tennessee -- *Vince Young, QB, Texas 4. New York Jets -- D'Brickashaw Ferguson, OT, Virginia 5. Green Bay -- *Mario Williams, DE, NC State 6. Oakland -- A.J. Hawk, LB, Ohio State 7. San Francisco -- DeMeco Ryans, LB, Alabama 8. Buffalo -- *Haloti Ngata, DT, Oregon 9. Detroit -- Jay Cutler, QB, Vanderbilt 10. Arizona -- DeAngelo Williams, RB, Memphis 11. St. Louis -- *Vernon Davis, TE, Maryland 12. Cleveland -- Chad Greenway, LB, Iowa 13. Baltimore -- Tamba Hali, DE, Penn State 14. Philadelphia -- *Santonio Holmes, WR, Ohio State 15. Atlanta -- Michael Huff, DB, Texas 16. Miami -- *Winston Justice, OT, USC 17. Minnesota -- *LenDale White, RB, USC 18. Dallas -- Jimmy Williams, DB, Virginia Tech 19. San Diego -- *Ko Simpson, DB, South Carolina 20. Kansas City -- *Ashton Youboty, CB, Ohio State 21. New England -- Bobby Carpenter, LB, Ohio State 22. Denver (from Wash.) -- Mathias Kiwanuka, DE, Boston College 23. Tampa Bay -- Derek Hagan, WR, Arizona State 24. Cincinnati -- Claude Wroten, DT, LSU 25. New York Giants -- *Ernie Sims, LB, Florida State 26. Chicago -- *Leonard Pope, TE, Georgia 27. Carolina -- *Anthony Fasano, TE, Notre Dame 28. Pittsburgh -- *Antonio Cromartie, CB, Florida State 29. Jacksonville -- Thomas Howard, LB, UTEP 30. Indianapolis -- *Laurence Maroney, RB, Minnesota 31. Denver -- *Darnell Bing, DB, USC 32. Seattle -- *Chad Jackson, WR, Florida

i still think michigan state is going to win the league.

congrats indiana on a good home win. killingsworth is a beast, no doubt, and to win when vaden has such an off night is a plus. also props to wilmont. he showed some sack tonight and was better than i'd heard. as for illinois, there are tons of things that piss you off about how they played, but i think they learned some things about the kind of team they are going to need to be in the second half. pruitt, randle and frazier showed me a lot tonight, and frankly they outplayed dee and augie. if those guys can ever get on the same page, i think this team could get on a roll.

this is a key point. the top programs in the country are going to corner the market on the four and five star kids most seasons. really good recruiters are finding the kids who may have slipped under the radar. illinois did not do that. the last unheralded recruit they had who panned out was eugene wilson. i also have to give walker credit for mining his home state well. northwestern has done incredibly well in ohio (ndukwe, sutton, backes, philmore) while illinois has had a meh presence there prior to last year. i would say in most year's the 20th best player in ohio is better than the 20th best player in illinois.

even though just about every mock has them taking him, i just don't like lewis for the bears. i'd much rather take a guy like byrd, klopfenstein or fasano later. we can get better value there than a guy who couldn't manage a catch against a bad northwestern defense.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 07:42 PM) You're missing one of my major points. There's a difference between talent and production. I'm not arguing that NU's players haven't produced better than the Illini. Clearly based on their win-loss record Illinois hasn't done much. However, that doesn't mean that Illinois doesn't have more atheltically gifted players. Just because guys at NU performed better doesn't mean that they necessarily recruited well. Good player development, training, and coaching can make up for that somewhat. However, you've been referring to athleticism, which is almost purely a factor of who you get to join the program. I've watched Northwestern football extensively, and I can tell you that Illinois and Indiana are the only team in the Big Ten that we are ever even close to in the Big Ten in terms of athleticism. There's a reason that most of NU's guys were passed over by the bigger teams. There's a reason that OSU decided not to seriously recruit Tyrell Sutton (I'm not sure where you got those numbers either, he rushed for 1474 yards and 16 TD's. That's a bit of a difference). Basically, he's a smallish back that doesn't have elite speed that probably wouldn't be all that effective in a standard I-formation set. He's pretty agile, shows some toughness, and is a decent receiver. But he also has trouble holding on to the ball and struggles a bit in short yardage situations. Illinois has 3 runningbacks that are more impressive athletically, they just can't seem to use them. Thomas's production would have been similar if he got as many carries as Sutton, who had about twice as many. Thomas had under 130, which is unacceptable for a guy with his talent. Bracic had over 150. Even considering that total counts sacks, that's absolutely ridiculous. The same goes for their wide receivers. None of our guys are exactly elite. Half of them can't even catch the ball with regularity. Our defenses have been almost equally inept also. The one possible difference is that NU seems to tackle a little better, but that has nothing to do with their athleticism. The one area where I'll admit that NU has done a bit better is at quarterback. Basanez has been at least a competent passer throughout his career and was pretty solid this year. Before that Kustok was good. That's probably because Basanez was one of our better recruits and Kustok tranferred from Notre Dame. Other than that, Illinois has definitely been better in terms of recruiting. That difference in QB quality and the fact our coaches seem to do a better job in player development accounts for a lot. Only one of those seems likely to change in the near future with the impending arrival of Isaiah Williams. well, talent and athleticism are subjective terms so there's no way to come to a definitive conclusion either way. you watch more northwestern football than i do, so i respect your view of their talent. similarly, i haven't missed an illinois game in quite awhile, and i strongly feel their talent the last two seasons (that was the sampling size i initially brought up) was below anyone's. i looked at some of scout.com's draft ratings for last year and this, and those seem to suggest that illinois is at a low ebb for talent. prior to the draft scout will evaluate every kid they view with draft potential. this year, northwestern has 10 players deemed as draft worthy. four of those players are rated within the top 25 at their position. illinois has seven players, two of which are in the top 25 (their punter and fullback). last year, northwestern had 11 players deemed draft worthy, six of whom were rated in the top-25 at their position. illinois had seven players, with two in the top-25. for the record, northwestern had three players drafted last year, and illinois had two. now does that prove anything? no. what we are discussing really can't be proven since we are dealing with a subjective criteria. however, illinois's talent lately has just sucked. if i take the long view i would agree that yes, over the course of history illinois has had better talent. lately? no.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 06:08 PM) Guess what: NU probably only has one DB that can crack a 4.6, and that's Cole. Illinois in general has much better athletes than NU. Just since I started at Illinois, they've put Morton, Hayden, and Wilson in the NFL. All were DB's with better than average athelticism. That's not even counting all of Illinois' more talented players, that's just the one position that you decided to harp on. NU rarely has guys that can actually run. The only guys that I'd call better than average athletes since the 'Cats went to the Rose Bowl ten years ago are D'Wayne Bates, Damien Anderson, Napoleon Harris, Luis Castillo, Loren Howard, Marquice Cole, Marvin Ward, Sam Simmons and Jeff Backes. They got most of those guys because they were undersized or extremely raw, and two guys of that group are linemen that aren't particularly fast. There might be one or two more underclassmen hiding on the roster, but that's about it. The real difference is that NU does something with the guys that they have. As opposed to Illinois not getting any production from higher caliber recruits, NU is turning guys like Pat Durr, Kevin Bentley, Barry Gardner, Tim McGarigle, Barry Coefield, Darnell Autry and Pat Fitzgerald into All-Big Ten level players. Even Tyrell Sutton isn't a ridiculously talented running back. His 40 time is somewhere in the mid-4.5's, he just knows how to find the crease and won't go down. Recruiting rankings aren't everything, but when discussing pure athleticism and incoming talent level, it works pretty well. Not every top guy pans out, but if you look at the impact freshmen in the BCS conferences I'd say at least 8 out of 10 were top 50 recruits or higher. Guys like Reggie Bush, Vince Young, Ted Ginn, Derrick Williams, Maurice Clarett, and Adrian Peterson weren't just ranked in the top 10 because their names were picked out of a hat. well, i didn't say the recruiting rankings didn't have some validity. i just said they were inexact. using guys like bush, young and ginn as examples as to their validity doesn't really tell me much. ray charles could have told you those guys were going to be players. besides, those are not players either illinois or northwestern are pulling in, so i'm not sure how they're relevant to this discussion. illinois has clearly not had better talent than anyone the past two seasons. different coaches and different systems have yielded the same results. now if you want to just stick with the underdog theme and always think that northwestern just has players who try harder and work harder and that allows them to overcome their deficiencies, then you are entitled to that opinion. mine is different. i also don't think you are giving sutton near enough credit. when you total more than 1,800 yards and 18 touchdowns as a true freshman running back in the big ten, you are ridiculously talented.

Jan. 12, 2006 | Now that underclassmen are declaring for the NFL draft, the Top 5 list will take on a different look in the coming weeks. Instead of Top 5 Seniors by Position, it is now Top 5 Players by Position, based on seniors and underclassmen who are involved in the draft process. Expect many more changes in the next few weeks, since underclassmen have until Jan. 15 to declare for April's draft. Quarterbacks 1. Matt Leinart, USC 2. Vince Young, Texas (Junior) 3. Jay Cutler, Vanderbilt 4. Brodie Croyle, Alabama 5. Charlie Whitehurst, Clemson 5a. Omar Jacobs, Bowling Green (Junior) Running Backs 1. Reggie Bush, USC 2. DeAngelo Williams, Memphis 3. LenDale White, USC 4. Laurence Maroney, Minnesota 5. Maurice Drew, UCLA 5a. Joseph Addai, LSU 5b. Brian Calhoun, Wisconsin Fullbacks 1. Lawrence Vickers, Colorado 2. J.D. Runnels, Oklahoma 3. Matt Bernstein, Wisconsin 4. Daccus Turman, South Carolina 5. David Kirtman, USC Wide Receivers 1. Santonio Holmes, Ohio State (Junior) 2. Derek Hagan, Arizona State 3. Sinorice Moss, Miami 4. Chad Jackson, Florida (Junior) 5. Maurice Stovall, Notre Dame 5a. Hank Baskett, New Mexico Tight Ends 1. Vernon Davis, Maryland (Junior) 2. Leonard Pope, Georgia (Junior) 3. Anthony Fasano, Notre Dame (Junior) 4. Dominique Byrd, USC 5. Marcedes Lewis, UCLA 5a. Owen Daniels, Wisconsin 5b. David Thomas, Texas Tackles 1. D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Virginia 2. Winston Justice, USC (Junior) 3. Ryan O'Callaghan, California 4. Jeremy Trueblood, Boston College 5. Marcus McNeill, Auburn 5a. Andrew Whitworth, LSU 5b. Eric Winston, Miami Guards 1. Jason Spitz, Louisville 2. Taitusi Lutui, USC 3. Max Jean-Gilles, Georgia 4. Kevin Boothe, Cornell 5. Rob Sims, Ohio State 5a. Davin Joseph, Oklahoma Centers 1. Ryan Cook, New Mexico 2. Nick Mangold, Ohio State 3. Greg Eslinger, Minnesota 4. Mike Degory, Florida 5. Todd Londot, Miami (Ohio) Place Kickers 1. Stephen Gostkowski, Memphis 2. Josh Huston, Ohio State 3. Connor Hughes, Virginia 4. Deric Yaussi, Wyoming 5. Kurt Smith, Virginia Defensive Ends 1. Mario Williams, NC State (Junior) 2. Tamba Hali, Penn State 3. Mathias Kiwanuka, Boston College 4. Kamerion Wimbley, Florida State 5. Manny Lawson, NC State 5a. Elvis Dumervil, Louisville 5b. Ray Edwards, Purdue (Junior) 5c. Jason Hatcher, Grambling Defensive Tackles 1. Haloti Ngata, Oregon 2. Orien Harris, Miami 3. Claude Wroten, LSU 4. Brodrick Bunkley, Florida State 5. Kyle Williams, LSU 5a. Titus Adams, Nebraska Inside Linebackers 1. D'Qwell Jackson, Maryland 2. Abdul Hodge, Iowa 3. Kai Parham, Virginia (Junior) 4. Gerris Wilkinson, Georgia Tech 5. Oliver Hoyte, NC State Outside Linebackers 1. A.J. Hawk, Ohio State 2. DeMeco Ryans, Alabama 3. Chad Greenway, Iowa 4. Ernie Sims, Florida St. (Junior) 5. Bobby Carpenter, Ohio State 5a. Thomas Howard, UTEP 5b. Stephen Tulloch, N.C. State (Junior) 5c. Cameron Vaughn, LSU Cornerbacks 1. Jimmy Williams, Virginia Tech 2. Ashton Youboty, Ohio St. (Junior) 3. Antonio Cromartie, Florida State (Junior) 4. Anwar Phillips, Penn State 5. Johnathan Joseph, South Carolina (Junior) 5a. Kelly Jennings, Miami 5b. Marcus Hudson, NC State 5c. Jason Allen, Tennessee 5d. DeMario Minter, Georgia 5e. Alan Zemaitis, Penn State Safeties 1. Michael Huff, Texas 2. Ko Simpson, South Carolina (Junior) 3. Donte Whitner, Ohio St. (Junior) 4. Anthony Smith, Syracuse 5. Danieal Manning, Abilene Christian (Junior) 5a. Bernard Pollard, Purdue (Junior) 5b. Dwayne Slay, Texas Tech 5c. Daniel Bullocks, Nebraska Punters 1. John Torp, Colorado 2. Steve Weatherford, Illinois 3. Jeff Williams, Adams State (Colo.) 4. Tom Malone, USC 5. Sam Paulescu, Oregon State

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 03:23 PM) You took mine!!! This guy was so underrated throughout the year. His value is for several reasons. 1. as a LB 2. As a pass rusher, possibly in a 3-4 set. 3. Dropping into coverage. The guy is amazing and should be a steal. no doubt. he also played some goal line tight end for them earlier in the season. he is an extremely versatile player. last year they needed him to play in coverage more. he was second on the team in interceptions. this year they needed him to rush the passer. he was second on the team in sacks. my guess is that once he works out, his value is really going to jump (late first, early second). he ran a 4.59 at 6-3 265 during osu's pro day last year. that is just getting it done.

bobby carpenter, lb, ohio state. (sorry addy!)

i'd say inexact is the best way to describe the rating systems. plus, i'd also add that the football recruiting rankings are much more inexact than the basketball ones. although football prospects get evaluated at various college summer camps, those evaluations aren't as detailed and as in-depth as people can get from going to aau basketball tournaments, or from something like the nike all-america camp.

QUOTE(danman31 @ Jan 15, 2006 -> 06:48 PM) What you just described is because NU coaches up their recruits and does find sleeper recruits like Tyrell Sutton. Illinois has better pure talent and the coaching staff needs to improve their players and does not do so. i just disagree that illinois has had better pure talent than northwestern lately. when you don't have a defensive back that can crack a 4.6, that is not talent. turner was not a horrible coach per se. he brought in poor talent.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jan 15, 2006 -> 06:25 AM) Illinois definitely recruits better than Northwestern almost every year. According to Rivals Loren Howard was the only 4-star recruit we got since 2002 (including the 2006 class), and I can only remember Basanez and Brian Huffman (kicker, not even a good one) being good recruits before that under Randy Walker. Illinois had 9 4-star or better recruits from 02-05 and has 4 in the 06 class. Most of them weren't RB's either (OL Martin O'Donnell (who was actually a 5-star), WR Kelvin Hayden, WR Lonnie Hurst, and JUCO DB James McGill to name a few). The class that came it at Illinois my freshman year (2001) was pretty good too, featuring at least two 4-star level guys in Matt Sinclair and Morris Virgil, possibly more. They might not look like it on the field, but Illinois definitely gets better recruits. It's pretty rare when NU brings in anyone that is more than a 3-star recruit, and many of their guys aren't even rated that highly. I hate to play the academics card, but many of the better recruits can't get into NU, and those that have the offers will usually go to a better program. They try to find lesser known guys so they don't have to compete with the big boys. NU had one really good class from Barnett's last year that turned into that 8-3 team that got blasted in the Alamo Bowl, but outside of that their highly touted recruits have been few in number. Before that you might have to go back to the Ara Parseigan (spelling?) era to find an NU team that had good recruits. They've been football doormats for almost their entire time as a program, so recruiting is definitely not one of their strong suits. Illinois can get a decent recruiting class, but they're not going to be able to get an absolute top of the line class that allows them to be toe-to-toe with the big boys at Michigan and OSU. They're going to need a top-15 class or two to really move up in the world (at least under Zook), and that probably won't happen. Zook got some big time talent at Florida, but that was at Florida before people knew that he couldn't coach. He's going to have a very tough time getting instant impact recruits, because he'll have to beat out the big time programs that are winning to get them. He's actually going to have to be able to coach these guys at some point to get them any higher than about 4th place. Remember, Zook actually lost to Mississippi State with talent superior to anything he is probably going to attract to Illinois. I really believe that their best chance to really establish themselves as a program is to catch lightning in a bottle with a hot younger coach on his way up to establish their program for a few years. Getting some strong assistants will help, but in the end they'll still need a real head coach to attract really good talent, and to prevent an 8-3 caliber team from turning into a 6-5 or lower team. I find it hard to believe that they'll be able to post more than back to back good seasons otherwise. well, once a class gets to the field the rankings don't make a difference to me. in a sense you've just described the fallacy of those rankings. out of the ranked players you mentioned for illinois, their supposed big-timers, the great majority of those guys either underachieved or didn't achieve at all. mcgill, for example, never played a down of football at illinois. looking back at those lists, very few of their highly-rated recruits did much. this is why turner lost his job, not because his recruits didn't have high star ratings, but because they were slow, weak, not-that-talented and just not very good football players. sure, illinois may get one or two four or five star guys each year, but what is the depth of their class like? looking back at those classes, the depth was pathetic. name-after-name that never saw the field. illinois may have won the star-rating battle with northwestern, but to me northwestern clearly won the recruiting battle. regardless of rankings the wildcats ended up with better players on the field and better results because of it. i would much rather have won the recruiting battle than the star battle.

wisky 52, northwestern 40 9:51

bad loss for kansas, although admittedly k-state is improved this year.

QUOTE(danman31 @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 10:04 PM) Illinois has outrecruited Northwestern for years and look at where the programs are. NU is consistently a solid team, looking like they are going to be able to make a bowl game in most years. Walker finds diamonds in the rough and coaches up his players. Meanwhile, Illinois continues to do less than nothing with their 'talent'. Illinois has a long way to go and these good recruits don't scare me one bit because they have had better talent than the results they have been producing for a while now. Zook was a good hire because U of I had nothing to lose. With that said, he may or may not improve the program. i don't think illinois has outrecruited northwestern lately. the past two years illinois has some of the worst talent i've ever seen in the league. the venturi-green-peay era northwestern teams had better talent than these last two illinois clubs. and i agree with just about everything palehosefan said in regards to what illinois needs to do. they have a real opportunity with their defensive coordinator position, and it would be nice to see them go out and get someone who has a clue. locksley i will live with because of his recruiting skills, but i'm not sold on the way they run their offense.

abc news

article on illinois recruiting from st. louis post-dispatch

wainwright looks like he either needs a good nap or needs to drink less scotch.

criticisms of zook's coaching are valid. i watched a lot of florida games when he was there and plenty of illinois games last year, and i clearly have tons of questions as to whether he can get it done on the field. all that said, he deserves the benefit of the doubt like any new coach. when he gets talented players in the program, then i can more accurately judge whether or not his coaching ability is sub-par or not. as for what i expect, i probably expect very little. most illinois fans do. if illinois was able to be a consistent middle of the pack program and challenge for the league title every few years, i'd probably be happy. but back on-topic, the ncaa has approved akim millington's transfer to illinois from oklahoma. millington was slated to be the starting right tackle for the sooners last year, but left school before the season. he will be eligible next year and you can probably pencil him in as a starter right now. akim millington

welcome back to the sox family chris.

chicagosports

can anyone tell me anything about reynoso? i'm familiar with the other guys, but don't know much about his repertoire.

it's hilarious. every message board has an "omigod, reggie bush is going back to college!" thread. about three posts in, every board has an "oh, michael bush" post. lol.

QUOTE(whitesoxin' @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 02:27 AM) No Jeff Samardzija in 2007????? samardzija is a really good pitcher for nd as well and most people think he'll choose to play pro baseball. he'll probably get drafted, though.