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The source. College coaches are definitely the best source of information for players entering the NFL draft, specifically, their own players. No one knows how a certain kid has come along over his years at the school, what he can and cannot do, or what type of defense or offense he thrives against like better than his coach. The work scouts and management go through trying to get information on each and every players goes under the radar as we don’t see any of it. The best men to talk to are always the coaches. Head coach Pete Carroll had 12 members of his USC team invited to the NFL Combine. His top prospect is QB Mark Sanchez, who is projected to go anywhere from fourth to the early teens in this weekend’s. Pete Carroll joined XX Sports Radio in San Diegoto discuss where Sanchez will go, how Mark is dealing with the whole process, the development of Matt Barkley, and more.
On the possibility of Mark Sanchez going 4th to the Seahawks:
“Nobody knows right now. Fact is, nobody knows what is gonna happen with this deal. Mark doesn’t know, we don’t know. There’s more disinformation than truth going on right now… I don’t know if Seattle wants to do it or not but they’re are talking about it and that is what’s exciting. You don’t know though… Nobody knows until it gets right down to it.”
On how Mark is handling the process:
“He has been a natural from the time we first met Mark when he was coming out of his sophomore year in High School. He has so much savvy and natural personality about himself and so much confidence from the great success that he has had. He can handle anything as well as any kid who has ever come along, so this is not too big for him.”
Do NFL coaches call and ask for his thoughts on a player at a particular spot?
“No, they basically won’t say that. They try real hard to not say that because they don’t want to commit and show their hand. We’ve talked to just about everybody by now… I’ll start to get a little thought about who’s feeling real good about it but even with that thought, it depends on what happens the pick before… You never really know and I know everybody likes to figure it out and say they know but… they don’t.”
Carroll on Matt Barkley, when he’ll name the 2009 starting quarterback, and the full interview after the jump.
On Matt Barkley:
“It’s amazing how well he’s done and we say that in comparison to how many other plays have done this. You go back to Leinart and Cassel when they were first starting and then Booty and Sanchez, all of those guys trying to get it done in their first years, they all struggled tremendously. Barkley is not struggling at all, he’s just not struggling. He gets it, it makes sense to him, he makes big plays every day, like you know he’s going to make it. He’s going to make a couple of plays a day where you wish we had back but we’ve said it time and again: it amazes us how many big plays he has in him and how comfortable he is. He’s had so much experience coming out of high school, starting for four years. He’s benefited greatly from throwing thousands of balls at Mater Dei and its all paid off for him.”
Will he announce the starting quarterback coming out of spring ball?
“Somebody has got to start in the game on Saturday (Trojan Huddle on April 25th) and that will be the guy in the best position at that point. I think it’s only the right thing to do, and what we always do, is continue to let the situation play out. There can be a tremendous amount of growth from the first time you’re with it to you break and you come back again… It will be ongoing and I think, more than ever, this is the case.”
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