Draft Notes

Well, if you're like me, you spent most of your weekend watching the draft, wondering all the while why you're watching it. College Football News has some pretty decent coverage, and NFL.com has some sortable draft lists, if that's more your speed.

My thoughts:

• Nine Buckeyes drafted, five in the first round. That's gotta be a good sign to recruits. Only USC had more drafted.
• Whoever was advising Donte Whitner to go pro is a genius. I thought he was a second-rounder when he came out, then I adjusted my projection to late first round. But man, top ten. Lucky him.
• Whoever advised Ashton Youboty to go pro should probably be fired. I'm with Tressel that you should leave if you're a first-rounder. I realize Ashton was a borderline first rounder, but I think he would've been a lock for the first round if he'd stuck around to work on his technique. Oh well, at least he's getting paid now.
• Santonio Holmes made out pretty well, going to Pittsburgh. He gets to be on a great team and play with Hines Ward drawing double teams on the other side of the field. True, he makes less money than he would have made going earlier, but I think not being asked to carry the passing game for a team is worth it.
• I'm surprised Mike Kudla and Josh Huston didn't get drafted. You figure Kudla would be worth a shot, between a solid senior season and tying the bench-press record. And Huston, while not the clear-cut best kicker like Nugent was last year, was at least arguably the best available. I expect both, along with maybe one or two others from the team, will end up in some team's camp. Update: Kudla's a Steeler, Huston's with Chicago, Hamby's at Cincinatti, Marcus Green's a Giant, and Tyler Everett's with the Broncos. Also, former DB E.J. Underwood was signed by the Giants.
  
• I gotta say the two big winners of the draft were the Bills and the Jets. Sure, some say the Bills managed to reach twice in the first round, but they did get Whitner and Youboty to go along with Nate Clements in the defensive backfield. That's a big upgrade over whoever they had before. And as for the Jets, they ended up with Nick Mangold and Anthony Schlegel, to go along with D'Brickashaw Ferguson and Kellen Clemens, who became the "Pac-10 QB I'm impressed with because I've only seen highlights of him" of the draft. Those guys don't have a good track record in the NFL, but then most of them have been Tedford QB's, a cross Clemens does not have to bear.
  

And, as a final note, in the upcoming football season, I will be cheering for the Jets and Panthers, with secondary consideration given to the Bills and Packers. The Jets won my casual affection last year by drafting Mike Nugent, and they added to it this year with Mangold and Schlegel. The Panthers have five Ohio State players (if you count Nick Goings, who was at OSU for a couple years before transferring), the most in the NFL. The Bills and Packers have 4 OSU alums each, and as such they will be looked upon fondly, but only 89% as fondly as the Panthers (Goings counts as an extra half alum, if you're wondering what's up with that math).