The UDS Draft of NFL Draft Names

Football is back, folks. Tonight, we get round one of the 2022 NFL Draft live from Las Vegas. Much like baseball season, the NFL Draft is always a sign of warmer weather and high hopes for fans league-wide.

With each announcement by human circus peanut Roger Goodell, a dream will be fulfilled for a young man who has worked his entire life to make it to the National Football League.

In terms of mock drafts, predictions, who picks who, I could give two shits. What I care about are the amazing names themselves. With that in mind, it’s time to draft our top 10 names likely to be selected this weekend:

10. Sterling Weatherford, S, Miami (OH): this guy sounds more like a British meteorologist than a football player.
9. Isaiah Likely, TE, Coastal Carolina: any name that can easily turn into a full sentence is a winner.
8. Brock Purdy, QB, Iowa State: have to hope this guy gets drafted to a team in the south, the ad deals basically write themselves.
7. Bailey Zappe, QB, Western Kentucky: maybe the second best QB name since Gunner Kiel.
6. Breece Hall, RB, Iowa State: always love a good prospect with some unknowns…was his name supposed to be Brice? Reece? No one knows!
5. Decobie Durant, CB, South Carolina State: this guy was so close to being named after two of the greatest basketball players ever.
4. Coby Bryant, CB, Cincinnati: not exactly but…close.
3. Smoke Monday, S, Auburn: all-time nickname, this is a no brainer.
2. Snoop Conner, RB, Ole Miss: honestly this is interchangeable with Smoke Monday.
1. Sauce Gardner, CB, Cincinnati: this was as sure fire of a number one pick as Andrew Luck.

Good luck to all of the draftee’s this weekend. May none of you get selected by the Jaguars.

Student Athletes – 1, NCAA – NIL

Photo: CBS Sports

Tuesday was a historic day in college sports. The NCAA officially enacted a name, image, and likeness (NIL) policy that allows “student” athletes to earn money off of their…name, image, and likeness. This finally allows any college athlete to (legally) earn income that they rightfully deserve.

We’ve already seen Fresno State basketball/TikTok stars Haley and Hanna Cavinder signed deals with Boost Mobile and Six Star Nutrition, Miami quarterback D’Eriq King is the new spokesman for the moving company College Hunks Hauling Junk, LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne could crack a million dollars from her NIL, and Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz straight up released his own logo.

An NIL approval plan was looooong overdue. Of course, as most things with the NCAA, it wasn’t handled correctly. But you can’t have sunshine without rain, right? We’ll see our fair share of car dealerships, autograph deals, and card signing gigs after today’s announcement. But what kind of player endorsements could we have missed out on in years past?

College football seems to benefit huge from the NIL agreement. Can you imagine if we could have seen Reggie Bush RE/MAX Real Estate ads? Andrew Luck working with the Palo Alto Mathnasium? Tim Tebow could have been taking a cut of Sunday tithe in any of the churches in the greater Gainsville area; Cam Newton missed an opportunity with the local Edward Jones Financial branch in Auburn, Alabama.

College basketball has had plenty of stars who could have cashed in back in their day. You can’t tell me a Joakim Noah/Gainesville CBD Store partnership wouldn’t have slapped. Greg Oden linking up with the ATI Physical Therapy in Columbus? Get out of here. Tyler Hansbrough toting Off! Bug Spray? Cha-ching. It’s not just the fellas who missed out on securing the bag. Diana Taurasi and Rebecca Lobo, two of the most dominant UConn Huskies of all time, could’ve crushed it with an ad campaign for the Humane Society. Sabrina Ionescu, the 2020 number one overall pick in the WNBA Draft, played her college ball at Oregon. How great would it have been to have a (paid) cameo appearance on “Portlandia?”

Just scratching the surface here, but don’t want to get too deep and depress all of us even more on what could’ve been. We’ll just have to grin and bear it and accept the fact that that these kids who give an incredible amount to their universities will now be duly paid whatever they can get out there and earn on the free market.

The NCAA sucks.

Sunday State of Mind: December 7th-December 13th

A slow week in sports leads to a slow week in content. But here we are, Sunday evening, and we’re going to try and squeeze some life out of the week that was in sports in this week’s Sunday State of Mind.

Some big changes afoot for Illinois football
Lovie Smith has been fired, his number’s been called
Seventeen wins in five years at the school
That’ll get you fired, and back in the job search pool

Another head coach fired, Auburn’s Guz Malzahn
After a 6-4 season, he’s now Guz Malz-gone
He brought the Tigers to the title game in 2013
But now the curtain has closed, end of scene

The NBA preseason returned this week
It’s still worth watching for basketball geeks
Doesn’t it seem like the offseason was incredibly short?
Everything’s weird and off schedule in this world of sports