MAC Draft Prospectus

The NFL draft is coming up Sunday (have you heard? If you haven't, then you haven't had talk radio on!). I wanted to take a quick second and look at what the prospects are for MAC players. Compared to the days of yore, when offensive players dotted the horizon, here you will find (with one notable exception) lineman and defensive players. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Just interesting.

Anyway, there are two players who stand apart from the rest of the MAC in draft-ability.

Larry English, DE from NIU. He is the 6th ranked DE in the draft, and might well be the first MAC player taken. A recent Scouts Inc mock draft on ESPN.com has him as the first pick in the second round, consigning him to the Detroit Lions, where he would at least play for a coach with a defensive mindset. And get playing time right away. If you know what I mean.

English gets (and deserves) good marks for all parts of his play, including a solid academics and being a two-time winner of the Vern Smith award.

Louis Delmas of WMU is actually the top-ranked safety in the draft according to some observers, and in the same mock draft went in the 2nd round (11th pick) to the San Francisco 49ers. The primary difference is that teams don't use high draft picks on safeties. I'm not sure why. Anyway, other than being a little small, he seems like he has the potential to have a pretty good MAC career. He was all-MAC three times.

Beyond those two, we bump up against the real issue of the draft from a MAC perspective....what will happen with Nate Davis? This has been the source of debate over at Overthepylon.com, a Ball State blog. It is familar to Falcon fans, because it sort of feels like what happened to Omar Jacobs when he came out...an inexorable fall from the start to the finish.

He did not help himself with turnovers in the MAC Championship and the GMAC Bowl.

Beyond that, the NFL execs, who are not exactly Rhodes Scholars themselves, have moved on to wondering about his dyslexia and overall ability to grasp an NFL playbook. Of course, they have done so through anonymous comments.

A player like Davis is in a real trap. Like Jacobs, he probably understood coming out from a MAC school is a risk. However, if he stays in school and ONLY duplicates what he did in 2008, then he begins to look like he might have topped out. The only way coming back helps him is if he can increase his production significantly beyond his junior year, and there are only so many passes a player is going to be able to complete.

The mock draft has him going in the 6th round to Buffalo (the 6th QB drafted). That is a low enough pick that a roster slot is not guaranteed, and he will probably go to camp fighting for a spot. It is certainly too bad, he was a special player in the MAC. I hope he gets his shot and proves everyone wrong.

There are others.

TJ Lang, an OT from EMU is pretty high ranked and could be an early second day pick. (EMU has more NFL draft picks per win than any other team I have seen).

In a very similar position is Augustus Parrish, an OT from Kent State. He is an early second day pick.

Robert Brewster, also an OT but from Ball State, is also projected to be a late pick.

Terrence Knighton, NT from Temple could be a late pick.

Other possibilities:

Chris Miller, P, Ball State, is one of the top five punters and a decent bet to make the NFL. He probably won't be drafted but that's only because they don't really use draft picks on punters.

Drew Willy, QB, Buffalo. I never thought he was even close to an NFL QB, but he does get mentioned occasionally.

Again, obviously heavy on defense and lineman. This is (I would guess, no actual facts here) typical of MAC drafts the last few years.