Looking ahead to the NFL draft

As I write this, it's exactly 60 days and 7 hours until the 2006 NFL Draft. (No, I'm not anxiously watching the clock. They have a counter on the Falcons Web site.)

I began my hunt for late-February pre-draft info not so much out of some fanatic obsession with the draft itself, but to satisfy my curiosity as a Gamecock fan -- I wanted to know where former Jacksonville State DB Darren Williams (6-2, 199) is projected to go.

So far, it's not looking too good for young Mr. Williams ... Apparently playing on a 6-5 I-AA team doesn't do much to enhance your draft standing. He's not at the Combine this week in Indy, so he's going to have to explore other means to get on the NFL radar.

After satisfying my curiosity there, I started snooping around for other schools' draft-eligible players. It started with Furman's Ingle Martin (aka He who dashed Gamecock hopes with minus-1 second on the clock back in September). He's at the Combine -- one of only a handful of I-AA players to be invited -- so his job is a lot easier. He's only rated as a 2-star prospect by Scout.com, but that's one star more than any player from the OVC. Bully for him.

Ah, the OVC. Apart from Williams, who else is on the table from our beloved conference?

Conference champs Eastern Illinois have two players to watch. Pascal Matla (6-5, 309) is the No. 11-ranked center in the draft. He's joined by fellow Panther Kory Loathe, a 6-4, 265 DE.

Colonel fans will be watching former Eastern Kentucky WR Andre Ralston (5-11, 180). On the other side of the ball, CB Cortland Finnegan (5-11, 195) hopes to makes Samford fans (and some lucky NFL team) happy on Draft Day.

Strangely, the team with the most draft-eligible players this year is Murray State, who finished a miserable 2005 season with only 2 wins against 9 losses (and no conference victories).

The Racers are led on the draft board by 6-2, 290 FB Matt Webber, ranked by Scout.com as the No. 11 FB in the draft. Joining him from the Racer backfield are RBs Ron Lane (5-10, 180) and Nick Turner (5-10, 182). Rounding out the Murray contingent is WR Danny Rumley (6-5, 210).

No players from Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, UT-Martin or Southeast Missouri made the list.

Good luck to all the draft-eligible players from the OVC and the rest of I-AA. (Even Ingle Martin.) Your success in the pros may not make the major media outlets pay closer attention to I-AA, but it will at least give us some more ammunition for the cause.

Bowls are for the weak! Long live championship football!

Field goal: 2 points or 3?

So, it might seem like I picked the worst possible time to start an OVC football blog - this week begins the OVC basketball tournament, and basketball, after all, drives the train in the OVC. Or does it?

As a Jax State fan I've heard that argument many times since the Gamecocks joined the conference. "JSU is a football school. We shouldn't be surprised they dominated their first two seasons in the league. We're focusing on basketball. That's what our fans care about."

If fans of OVC schools are indeed basketball mad, one might expect that to show up in attendance numbers. Basketball numbers could be expected to compare favorably to football, since the OVC's football attendance isn't among the largest in I-AA, after all. Instead of assuming this, I decided to check. I was surprised.

I compared average attendance in football for 2005 at each school (including Austin Peay & Morehead, though they don't play in the OVC), to average attendance per game for the 2004-05 men's basketball season. The average football crowd was at least twice as large as the average basketball crowd at six of the 11 schools. The football crowd was larger at 10 of the 11 schools. Only Murray State (which is, indeed, basketballl mad and had an absolutely horrible football team in '05 - 2-9 overall, 0-7 OVC) saw a bigger average basketball crowd.

Now, one might argue that since basketball teams play more games, fans attend a smaller percentage of those games than they do in the much shorter football season. The total crowd for basketball may compare more favorably. I'll have to analyze that later, as I'm about out of time today.

My numbers are pasted below for your reference. The last column is the ratio of the average football crowd to the average basketball crowd. One might read that as a measure of football's fan following compared to that of basketball. My reading: Over all, football is more than twice as important to OVC fans as men's basketball is.

OVC Attendance, Average per game, 2005

School        Football B-ball F-B ratio
Jax State      11389    1528   7.45
Samford         5939    1848   3.21
Tennessee St.  15023    4893   3.07
Morehead        6269    2135   2.94
E. Kentucky     8440    3073   2.75
E. Illinois     6182    2295   2.69
Tenn. Tech      6172    3554   1.74
SEMO            6577    3901   1.69
UT-Martin       3865    2680   1.44
Austin Peay     3664    2878   1.27
Murray St.      3660    4373   0.84

OVC average     7016    3014   2.33

Source: NCAA statistics

Steppin' up

For the first post with any content, let's take an early look at the OVC's scheduled matchups with I-A teams, shall we?

Sept. 2 - EKU @ Cincinnati, UT-Martin @ Ohio
Sept. 9 - Samford @ Georgia Tech
Sept. 23 - Tennessee State @ Vanderbilt
Oct. 14 - Jax State @ Mississippi State, SEMO @ Arkansas

EIU, Murray & T-Tech haven't published schedules yet. JSU's schedule, for that matter, is unofficial, but has been widely circulated.

3 SEC teams, an ACC, a Big East, and a MAC squad. Looks to me about as ambitious as any conference in the country, except for perhaps JSU's old friends in the Southland. Many of those Louisiana teams are playing multiple I-As (SELA & NW State each have 3!) to shore up their budgets in Hurricane Katrina's wake.

Kickoff

Perhaps this will become the best spot on the Web for news about college football in the Ohio Valley Conference. We'll have to see about that.