The drumbeat is getting louder from college coaches who want to see changes to the system for providing feedback to underclassmen that are considering early NFL draft entry.
The latest noise comes from the coach who lost more underclassmen to the draft than any other this year: Ohio State's Urban Meyer.
The OSU coach said Wednesday that he favors a combine-style workout for underclassmen prior to the deadline for them to apply for early draft eligibility.
"We're going to try to get something where there's a time those [scouts] can actually come in and they can work out the juniors," Meyer said at a youth football camp, per Pro Football Talk. "Because information is good. [The players] are getting their information somewhere, so why not get it from the experts -- the scouts, the general managers, people who have the right information? They're getting it from agents and they're getting it from wannabes, and that's not good information."
Ohio State lost nine underclassmen to the NFL draft this year. Seven of those players were selected.
Meyer said he's spoken with American Football Coaches Association executive Todd Berry and Alabama coach Nick Saban about ways to help underclassmen make a more informed decision about the draft. Saban recently spoke in favor of an event like an underclassmen combine, and Arkansas coach Bret Bielema has suggested that underclassmen be allowed to return to college after the draft if they are not selected. Bielema isn't the first coach to put forth a reform idea with a broad brush, short on crucial details, and won't be the last. Saban himself, in fact, pointed out one pitfall with Bielema's idea.
"First of all, you'd probably have twice as many guys wanting to see where they're going to get drafted," Saban said. "So you'd have twice as many guys who would probably end up missing spring practice. You wouldn't know until May what your numbers were."
Saban's suggestion is to hold the combine-style workout Meyer prefers on college campuses after spring practice so that would-be juniors get a chance to meet with NFL evaluators a year before they are draft-eligible. That, of course, would scatter NFL evaluators all over the country, much like pro days, as opposed to the traditional combine setting that gathers all draft prospects to one venue. It would also stretch an NFL general manager's resources at an inopportune time -- shortly before the NFL draft. Meyer has also spoken in favor of moving the deadline by which underclassmen must apply for early draft eligibility to a later date.
When it comes to reform, coaches know what they want, but they don't always know how to get there. If they do, they're brokering details in private with decision makers, not so much in front of a microphone. Ultimately, decision makers at both the pro and college level would have to work together to hash out key details.
Absent that, ideas will remain stuck in the idea stage.
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread*.
