I watched the Senior Bowl broadcast on NFL Network today and was struck by how few people were in the stands watching the North practice. The reason? The South was practicing at the same time at Fairhope Stadium on the other side of Mobile Bay, and the South has the star power this year. Big-name players like USC safety Taylor Mays and Alabama NT Terrence Cody are on the South squad, not to mention the king of college football, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow.
Tebow has two strikes against him already. One is that he has a funny throwing motion that involves him dropping the ball practically to his knee. The second is that, like Alex Smith before him, he took the lion's share of his snaps in college from the shotgun. That seemed to be an issue today. NFL Net's Lindsay Soto reported that Tebow botched his first snap from center and also fumbled "five or six" snaps during the practice. Yikes. It should be noted that Smith flubbed his first-ever practice snap after joining the 49ers.
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The Senior Bowl players also had their weigh-in today, which is like a beauty pageant minus beautiful women. Players dressed only in their skivvies are paraded on a stage so that hundreds of coaches, scouts and personnel men can take note of their bodies. Some measurements of interest:
Cody, the Alabama nose tackle, is known for his size. After all, his nickname is Mt. Cody. NFL teams, however, might want to blast away at part of that mountain after Cody weighed in at 370 pounds today.
Another Alabama product, cornerback Javier Arenas, measured in at little over 5-8. Only Ole Miss RB/WR Dexter McCluster was shorter. McCluster, however, weighed 165 pounds. Arenas was a more solidly built 195 pounds. Arenas is one of the top return-man prospects in the draft.
Idaho guard Mike Iupati weighed 325 pounds and, more impressively, had 35-inch arms. That's long for anyone, especially a guard. By comparison, Herman Johnson, the massive LSU tackle who last year measured in at 6-7 and weighed 382 pounds, had 36-inch arms. Iupati is considered the top prospect at guard and you have to wonder whether tackle might be in his future.
Florida receiver Riley Cooper has big hands. They measured in a 10 1/8 inches, which is what you'd like to see in a big defensive tackle or offensive tackle. Mays, meanwhile, measured up at 6-3, 231.
-- Matt Barrows
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