Round: 7
Pick: 40
Player: Colin Kaepernick
School: Nevada
Position: QB

Ultimately, no matter what sort of offense you run, the QB will be running your show, so I figure I can’t wait much longer to draft a QB or I might not have a lot of confidence in any plays I want to call. And that’s why I took Colin Kaepernick, QB, Nevada.

Career: Colin set the Nevada Football world on fire when he took over the offense in the 5th game of his redshirt sophomore season (2007). That year, playing in just 9 games, Colin threw for 2,175 yards with 19 touchdowns and 3 INTs. He also rushed for 6 more TDs. In 2008, Colin threw for 2849 yards with a 13.7 yards-per-attempt average. He also threw for 22 TDs against 7 INTs with a 54% completion rate. Kid can sling the ball, and when he connects, it’s usually for a big gain. But he may miss a few here and there as well. He makes up for that rushing. Last year, he made up for that 54% with 1130 yards rushing.

Why Him Instead of a Domer: I needed a starting QB, JC wasn’t available, and frankly this kid can do an awful lot of damage on his own.

Career Vs. Notre Dame: Colin has never played against the University of Notre Dame.

Prediction for 2009: Actually, we expect Colin’s stats to either level off or possibly even shrink. Yes, the kid has a boatload of talent, but in 2008 he also had a NFL-caliber WR to throw to against WAC-level competition in Marko Mitchell. With those Marko gone, one has to wonder if the 2-dimensional threat of the Nevada defense will remain. After all, they now only have one WR in Nevada with more than one career catch. Also, he opens his season with ND. At 6-6, 220, I’m wondering what might happen to him vs. a Jon Tenuta defense with this sort of speed and talent. He could get pretty dinged up.

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Round: 6
Pick: 33
Player: Brian Smith
School: The University of Notre Dame
Position: LB

Finally, a Domer!

I almost couldn’t believe that Brian Smith was still available this late in the draft. I suppose that’s a testament to the strength of the overall talent pool in this draft at the linebacker position. At least, I hope so, because the Irish are going to depend a lot on Mr. Smith this season.

Career: Became a sensation and one of a very few bright spots in the 2007 season with his intense play that earned him a starting spot at OLB by the end of the year. He even offered a glimmer of hope to the Irish’s season, at least for an hour or so, in the BC game when he returned an interception for a TD. At that point, we here at HLS were still formulating ways for the Irish to become bowl-eligible. In 2008, Brian was moved to the interior and frankly seemed a bit uncomfortable there. He recorded just 4 tackles for a loss in 2008, the same total he managed in 2007 with far less playing time. Also recorded just 54 tackles even though the defense was supposed to be spoon-feeding them to Brian. Still, we continue to love the “spark” he adds with his enthusiasm and intense play.

Prediction for 2009: More hope than prediction – Brian will find a more comfortable and natural place on the linebacker corps in 2009 that will allow his knack for big, disruptive plays to take over. Frankly we think his value to the team would be much higher if he’s concerned with accumulating TFL stats rather than accumulating regular tackle stats. (Since writing the previous few lines, we’ve been to the open practice. Brian looks like he’ll be the #1 MIKE. Hopefully last year’s experience will pay big dividends.)

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*Note: After the 5th round, we decided to speed up the draft a bit by each making 2 consecutive picks per round. So from here on out, until the final round, each round will feature 2 picks per team – and thus 2 write-ups.

Round: 6
Pick: 32
Player: Mark Dell
School: MSU
Position: WR

By now, the “absolute gems” of the WR pool have been taken, so I’m looking for things like “dependable,” “surprising speed,” and “good leadership qualities” in my WR, but I still think I’ve gotten a pretty good value pick here in Mark Dell out of MSU.

Career: Mark did pretty well for himself as a freshman in Dantonio’s program, actually getting to play in all 13 games and starting in 8 as a split-end. He finished his first campaign with just 20 catches, but he did manage to record at least one catch in 12 games. In 2008, he once again only started 8 games, but saw action in 11, and this time his productivity jumped considerably. Mark lead the team in receiving yards and yards per catch (679, 18.9). He did only have 3 TD catches, but then again, he was playing for MSU.

Why Him Instead of a Domer: The must-have Irish had been taken long ago, so I was looking for a guy who might be a starter for his squad. Mark will almost certainly start the season at the #1 SE.

Career Vs. Notre Dame: Mark has just one catch for 16 yards in 2007 against the Irish. In 2008 he lead his team in receiving versus ND with 4 catches for 80 yards. And if I recall correctly, 1 or 2 of those catches really kept long MSU drives alive. That might be why I remembered him when it was time to draft. I remember being infuriated with him (and whoever was covering him).

Prediction for 2009: Well, he’s still playing in Mark Dantonio’s system, but with Javon Ringer out of the game, he’s got an opportunity to become a much higher value asset to MSU. If the MSU running game isn’t as effective as it was in 2008, Dell could find himself as the #1 target in a lot of “must pass” down and distance situations. And, considering MSU plays at ND this year, he’s practically guaranteed to make me want to kill something.

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Classic Ground gives a quick look at all of the players they’ve drafted thus far and then present their picks for rounds 11 and 12. And this time, he has to clear up some ambiguity with the clever use of initials.

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Classic Ground picked a guy in the 9th round who isn’t even expected to be a starter on his own team. Go find out how that could happen.

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Round: 5
Pick: 25
Player: Brett Swenson
School: MSU
Position: PK

I freaking hate kickers, but if you’ve got a lousy place kicker, you’ve got a huge hole in your game. The rules state that place kickers can actually score points in the game, and thus they can be valuable, particularly when your pool of potential place kickers is relatively weak looking. And so, with the fear of my own “Wide Right” episode haunting my otherwise lofty career, I took a place kicker: Brett Swenson of MSU.

Career: Started his career off on the, ahem, right foot by getting named to the First-Team Freshman All-Americans by the Football Writers of the America. He’s since continued to build an impressive resume. His sophomore year, he managed to compile the 2nd largest point total of all members of the MSU roster. And his junior year, he converted all 38 PAT attempts and went 22 of 28 in field goals. He heads into his senior year atop just about every watch list any magazine or association has created for kickers. Freaking kickers.

Why Him Instead of a Domer: What really sold me weren’t his stats that I had to look up. What sold me is that for the past couple of years, when watching him against ND and in other contests, I’ve come to just expect him to make kicks. It’s been a while since I could say that about ND’s kickers, though I think that could well change this year.

Career Vs. Notre Dame: Made the only FG attempt he, err, attempted in 2006 before his HC went into full meltdown mode. In 2007, he also converted his lone attempt. In 2008, he was far more active, and quite dependable, going 3 for 3 on kicks of 45, 26, and 23 yards. Yeah, bet you forgot MSU only scored 2 TDs in that game too.

Prediction for 2009: Absolutely no reason to doubt the kid, and also no reason to doubt he’ll get his opportunities to compile points seeing as how 114% of MSU’s offense left after last year and he plays for one of the most conservative coaches still left in college football.

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Round: 4
Pick: 16
Player: Joe McKnight
School: USC
Position: RB

Just about now, in the draft, I start to panic, and I remind myself that I probably couldn’t run the Detroit Lions any better than those who do run the Detroit Lions. Well, okay, I could, but just barely.

Anyway, I start to see a future me who is in possession of a team with no game-breaking skills, so I do what any GM in a mock draft of this sort would do. I furiously scan my copy of Phil Steele. I go look at what SoCal has on their roster. And that’s when I remember Joe McKnight.

Career: Joe’s been a part of of a massive stable of RB talent since his controversial recruitment by Pete Carroll and Reggie Bush. And just like everyone else in that RB corps, he’s been tabbed as “the next Reggie Bush.” Of course, that’s been inaccurate, but McKnight is extremely talented and would likely see himself starting on just about any other roster in the country. And even though he finds himself splitting time with 2, or sometimes 3, other RBs, he’s still managed to put together 8 different 100-yard all-purpose games. And last year, when he got the opportunities, he often made the most of them, averaging 7.4 yards per carry, good for 4th best in the nation.

Why Him Instead of a Domer: 7.4 yards per carry seems like a pretty damned good reason to me. That’s a full 3 yards better than Armando Allen’s 2008 average.

Career Vs. Notre Dame: In 2007, he rushed 7 times for 65 yards and a 9.3 yard average. But 1 of those rushes was for 51 yards. So the other 6 carriers only averaged 2.33 yards. Repeating, of course. So ha! Oh, but wait, that 51 yarder was good for a TD and served as the final throat-punch in a 38-0 game. In 2008, he didn’t have to wait until the 4th Q for a 50 yarder. No. That time, he got to run 55 yards down the field with 9 minutes to go in the 2nd Q. And then he apparently took a break, because he only rushed 3 other times in the game – all for a 15.8 yard average. But hey, again, look on the bright side: Those 3 other carries only netted 8 more yards.

Prediction for 2009: It’s tough to gauge in the real world. Apparently he’s getting a little sick of being just a cog in the machine, but it looks like Carroll has no intention of moving him to defense. And who could blame him? What coach wants to stop using a guy who could take the ball 60 yards at any point in the game? But it will be interesting to see what happens here. This seems like a small issue now, but could it finally be the sort of frustration we’ve all been expecting to see coming from SC with their eleventy running backs? Probably not. The cosmos don’t work that way. Besides, if McKnight got frustrated enough to leave SC, this guy would have to change his entire color scheme.

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Round: 3
Pick: 12
Player: Kevin Basped
School: Nevada
Position: DE

Time to start thinking about defense. And my top priority is speed on the edge. 1) I want to get to the opposing QB in a hurry, and 2) All these spread-happy offenses that are all the rage today require everyone, even DL, to “play in space.” At this point in the draft, I had the chance to take some good, young talent that could develop into something special, but I also happened to have a chance to take a guy who’s a bit unknown but no longer unproven: DE Kevin Basped from Nevada.

Career: Kevin started off his collegiate career impressively (after a redshirt year), managing to rank 6th in his conference (WAC) in Tackles for Loss with 11.5 – starting just 5 games, but playing in all 13. He continued his knack for stopping the opposition behind the LOS in 2008, leading his team in TFL and coming in 2nd in sacks. In 2008, he had 18.5 TFL for an average of 1.5 tackles behind the LOS per game.

Why Him Instead of a Domer: Again, I was looking for an edge rusher who was proven. I think the Irish have a ton of potential on the edge, but nobody at ND showed up in the top-100 for TFL last year. Kevin showed up at 17th.

Career Vs. Notre Dame: Has never played against Notre Dame.

Prediction for 2009: It’s hard to say in terms of the entire season, but looking at his abilities versus the-still-infuriatingly-unknown-ND-OL, I’ll bet his name gets announced at least a couple of times in the first game of the season, and Irish fans everywhere, who didn’t bother to read this post, wonder who the hell this kid is. Sure, Nevada was wretched against the pass last year, and there’s not much hope for that continuing, but that doesn’t mean Jimmy Clausen will leave the field with a sparkling clean jersey either.

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For those of you not writing, go on over to Classic Ground and enjoy a video in which the latest edition of the Irish look awesome while running a screen play. Try to ignore the talent differential.

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Featured in his picks, 1 stat about one particular player that looks awesome for that player, horrible for his team – his number of tackles.

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