Thought y'all would be interested in this. Wasting time at work I was reading ESPN and the Quickie page. They were discussing College to the Pros issues (Clarrett) Anyway, notice on the right hand side who they said underclassman who should go pro http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/quickie They say Xavier Carter would be the first prep-pro player...
Well I'm glad he isn't listening to them. Give him a few years under Saban and also Pat Henry, who will be shaping him into a great olympic sprinter, and he will be absolutely unstoppable!
I think its stupid that they are going to allow players to go pro whenever they want now.....this is going to hurt college football just like it did college basketball..granted basketball is MUCH easier to make the jump, but its already hard enough to keep a good football player past his junior year....now we are going to have players leaving after their soph. year.......its going to take a few major bust to show these kids that they need a good 3-4 years of college football to be successful in the NFL... But in my opinion, the only position that I can see leaving early and being successful in the NFL is WR....if you have the size and speed.
Coaching has a lot to do with kids who are already in college who are considering it. Saban has so many NFL connections that players listen to what he has to say. Then you have players like Webster who likely would have been a very high selection staying for another year. Kids like that have their head on straight and already know that if they put the work in, they will do nothing but improve their stock. I remember Saban saying something about fear of injury in the Sr year. His response was that he could only think of one player who got hurt Sr year (McGahee) and he was still selected in the 1st round.