you left early? seriously?

as the '09 draft class has fully taken shape, some of the players who are leaving early really are head scratchers. the majority of the decisions that are especially confusing come from the big 10, which isn't really very surprising. after having lived in buckeye country, the midwest really isn't very glamorous - but you didn't need me to tell you that. my choices for the biggest surprise early entrants are as follows:

aaron maybin of penn state
seriously? were you just so embarrassed by the rose bowl that you had to get out of happy valley? i guess i can't really blame the guy for wanting to move on when his head coach doesn't come to the locker room at halftime of the granddaddy of them all to coach his team. still though, aaron maybin may be a fantastic player one day but he is a sophomore. he can't even buy himself a beer. maybe the jonathan stewart argument will hold up, but that is highly unlikely in the case of a defensive end.

brian hartline of ohio state
dude, you aren't anthony gonzalez. did you think that it would be a good idea to go into a draft class that includes michael crabtree, hakeem nicks, percy harvin and jeremy maclin? have fun being a 4th round pick and playing for the browns.

chris wells of ohio state, pj hill of wisconsin, shonn greene of iowa
did all of you guys pinky swear that you would flood the '09 draft with 2nd round running back picks from the big 10? must have. also need to question glenn coffee and lesean mccoy's choice to leave early with all of those guys in the mix as well as knowshon moreno. too many great college running backs who won't do well in the league. pj hill and shonn greene certainly have the size, but we shall see.

nate davis of ball state
you gotta be kidding me, nate. take off the receiver gloves and grip the ball by the laces for christ sake. your pieces of flair don't make up for the fact that you won't play in the nfl, ever. i would probably want to get out of muncie, indiana as well though... the ridiculous thing is that nate davis is the 3rd best qb in the draft behind mark sanchez and matt stafford. with that in mind, sanchez certainly made a smart choice by declaring this year as he is my pick for the best qb in the draft and that probably wouldn't be the case next year. pete carroll didn't need to act like a baby about it.

eat your heart out mel kiper!

hook 'em horns!

texas beats ohio state miraculously in the fiesta bowl...how great for all of those guys and for everyone wearing burnt orange. this was a fun game to watch and showed that colt mccoy is a great college football player who will join the likes of eric crouch, kliff kingsbury and more recently chris leek as awesome college players who never made it on sundays. i think that tim tebow will also join this list unless someone does something with him like the 49'ers did with former penn state qb michael robinson (he is now a very useful fullback).

it also let us know yet again that nothing could happen without colt's lord and savior. i wonder if his is different than mine and all the rest of ours or something - it seems that he is thanking his quite frequently, maybe i didn't read the instruction manual for my lord and savior with quite enough scrutiny. also colt needs to watch a little more of his colleagues playing the game. he claimed that no one could beat them. well, colt, you should have watched the rose bowl.

i don't have a whole lot to say about this game because it was fun to watch and was a quality bowl game. the only thing about it that is really getting at me is the idea that there should be a joint national championship if oklahoma beats florida between ou and texas. if anything, there should be a joint national championship with usc involved, those guys would have demolished texas and oklahoma. florida v. usc sure would have been fun to watch, but oh well!