The deadline for declaring for the 2010 NFL Draft was Friday, January 15. As a follow up to an earlier diary, "How the 2010 NFL Draft will transform the Big Ten", I wanted to review the players who actually left college and how the Big Ten will change as a result.

Many prognosticators suggested that this year's draft would set a record for the most juniors to leave early. Some said that as many as 75 underclassmen would put their names in for draft consideration. It was a record-tying year for early entrants, but not the mass exodus that many predicted. 53 underclassmen declared that they would be available for draft consideration by NFL teams; tying the previous high set in 2008 and exceeding the 46 that declared last year.

As I discussed in my earlier diary, the reasons this draft inspired so many players to consider early entry were all related to the expiring labor agreement between NFL players and owners, and the chances of a lockout in 2011. Changes in the new contract might limit both player rookie earnings and prospects for free agency, so many agents were encouraging players to take a shot now.

It sounds like the NFL went out of their way to discourage underclassmen from leaving early.

"There will be no change in our current [rookie pool] system, at least until 2011," Goodell told ESPN on Saturday. "I've explained that to some college head coaches, athletic directors and league commissioners. Any underclassman who is hearing differently is probably hearing it from an agent or from another source who is misinformed." Source - ESPN

Players who submitted their paperwork and did not receive a grade within the first three rounds, were not informed of an official grade. Instead, they were told that they did not receive a grade within the first three rounds. As far as we know, in past years, players were told what round they were projected to get drafted in by the NFL Advisory Committee, even if it was a grade later than round three. Source - NFL Draft Bible

Roger Goodell's assertion that there won't be any changes to the rookie system until at after 2011 is probably true according to the Players Association. . . since they think that season will be locked out.

Union sources believe the likelihood of a rookie hard cap being in place by 2011 is remote because, as Smith inferred again, management is preparing for a lockout that season. Source - ESPN

So what effect will early entry have on college football? Here's a list of players that have declared (I included the Scout star ranking when they left high school or junior college):

POS	Player	Team	Status	Rank
QB	Jimmy Clausen	Notre Dame	Declared	5 star
QB	Jevan Snead	Mississippi	Declared	4 star
QB	Sam Bradford	Oklahoma	Declared	4 star
RB	Joe McKnight	Southern California	Declared	5 star
RB	Jonathan Dwyer	Georgia Tech	Declared	4 star
RB	Jahvid Best	California	Declared	4 star
RB	Toby Gerhart	Stanford	Declared	3 star
RB	Shawnbrey McNeil	SMU	Declared	3 star
RB	Darius Marshall	Marshall	Declared	2 star
WR	Arrelious Benn	Illinois	Declared	5 star
WR	Chris Bell	Norfolk State	Declared	5 star
WR	Dez Bryant	Oklahoma State	Declared	4 star
WR	Damian Williams	Southern California	Declared	4 star
WR	Golden Tate	Notre Dame	Declared	4 star
WR	Demaryius Thomas	Georgia Tech	Declared	3 star
WR	Dezmon Briscoe	Kansas	Declared	2 star
WR	Mico McSwain	North Alabama	Declared	2 star
WR	Mike Williams	Syracuse	Declared	2 star
WR	Carlton Mitchell	USF	Declared	2 star
WR	Antonio Brown	Central Michigan	Declared	1 star
TE	Aaron Hernandez	Florida	Declared	5 star
TE	Jermaine Gresham	Oklahoma	Declared	4 star
TE	Rob Gronkowski	Arizona	Declared	4 star
OT	Anthony Davis	Rutgers	Declared	5 star
OT	Brian Bulaga	Iowa	Declared	4 star
OT	Bruce Campbell	Maryland	Declared	4 star
OL	Maurkice Pouncey	Florida	Declared	4 star
DE	Jason Pierre-Paul	South Florida	Declared	5 star JC
DE	Carlos Dunlap	Florida	Declared	5 star
DE	Everson Griffen	Southern California	Declared	5 star
DE	Clifton Geathers	South Carolina	Declared	4 star
DE	Thaddeus Gibson	Ohio State	Declared	4 star
DE	Derrick Morgan	Georgia Tech	Declared	4 star
DE	Kevin Basped	Nevada	Declared	2 star
DT	Gerald McCoy	Oklahoma	Declared	5 star
DT	Brian Price	UCLA	Declared	5 star
DT	Abe Koroma	Western Illinois	Declared	3 star
ILB	Rolando McClain	Alabama	Declared	4 star
OLB	Jason Worilds	Virginia Tech	Declared	4 star
OLB	Rennie Curran	Georgia	Declared	4 star
OLB	Navorro Bowman	Penn State	Declared	4 star
S	Chad Jones	LSU	Declared	5 star
S	Eric Berry	Tennessee	Declared	5 star
S	Major Wright	Florida	Declared	5 star
S	Earl Thomas	Texas	Declared	4 star
S	Reshad Jones	Georgia	Declared	4 star
S	Morgan Burnett	Georgia Tech	Declared	4 star
CB	Donovan Warren	Michigan	Declared	5 star
CB	Joe Haden	Florida	Declared	4 star
CB	Dominique Franks	Oklahoma	Declared	4 star
CB	Kareem Jackson	Alabama	Declared	3 star
CB	Amari Spievey	Iowa	Declared	2 star

You'll notice that the list is made up of mostly 4 and 5 star players with an abundance of WRs and DEs.  Overall it's hard to say that the departures of these players will have a major impact on next season in college football.

The Big Ten only ended up losing six players.  So what kind of impact will departing players (including seniors) have on the Big Ten?

	Illinois	Indiana	Iowa	Michigan
QB	Juice Williams
RB	Daniel Dufrene*	Demetrius McCray*		Brandon Minor
RB		Bryan Payton*		Carlos Brown*
WR	Arrelious Benn**		Trey Stross	Greg Matthews
WR	Chris Duvalt			LaTerryal Savoy*
WR	Jarred Fayson
TE	Michael Hoomanawanui	Troy Wagner	Tony Moeaki
TE		Brian Zematis
OT		Rodger Saffold	Kyle Calloway	Mark Ortmann
OT			Bryan Bulaga**
OT
OT
OG	Jon Asamoah	Pete Saxon	Andy Kuempel*	David Moosman
OG		Mike Reiter*	Dace Richardson
OG			Dan Doering*
C	Eric Block		Rafael Eubanks
C
DE	Antonio James	Greg Middleton	Chad Geary*	Brandon Graham
DE	Doug Pilcher	Jammie Kirlew		Adam Patterson*
DE
DT	Rahkeem Smith*		Travis Meade*
DT	Sirod Williams
DT
LB		Will Patterson	A.J. Edds
LB		Justin Carrington*	Pat Angerer
LB		Matt Mayberry
LB
CB	Dere Hicks		Amari Spievey**	Donovan Warren**
CB
CB
S	Donsay Hardeman	Austin Thomas		Steve Brown
S		Collin Taylor*
S		Nick Polk
S		Matt Kurz*
K				Jason Olesnavage
P	Anthony Santella			Zolton Mesko
Total	15	16	13	12
	Michigan State	Minnesota	Northwestern	Ohio State
QB			Mike Kafka
RB
RB
WR	Blair White	Ben Kuznia*	Andrew Brewer	Ray Small*
WR			Kevin Frymire
WR
TE		Nick Tow-Arnett		Jake Ballard
TE
OT	Rocco Cironi	Matt Stommes*	Kurt Mattes*	Jim Cordle
OT	Mike Schmeding*
OT
OT
OG	Brendon Moss		Desmond Taylor*
OG
OG
C	Joel Nitchman			Andrew Moses*
C	John Stipek*
DE	Trevor Anderson	Cedric McKinley	Corey Wootton	Thaddeus Gibson**
DE	Colin Neely	Barrett Moen		Lawrence Wilson*
DE		Derrick Onwuachi*
DT	Michael Jordan*	Eric Small	Adam Hahn	Todd Denlinger
DT		Garrett Brown	Marshall Thomas*	Doug Worthington
DT				Rob Rose
LB	Brandon Denson	Simoni Lawrence		Austin Spitler
LB		Rex Sharpe*
LB	Adam Decker*	Nate Triplett
LB		Lee Campbell
CB	Jeremy Ware	Traye Simmons	Sherrick McManis	Andre Amos*
CB	Ross Weaver*	Marcus Sherels
CB
S	K. Davis-Clark*		Brad Phillips	Kurt Coleman
S	Ashton Henderson*		Brendan Smith	Anderson Russell
S	Dan Fortener
S
K	Brett Swenson
P		Blake Haudan		Jon Thoma
Total	17	15	11	14
	Penn State	Purdue	Wisconsin
QB	Daryll Clark	Joey Elliott
RB		Jaycen Taylor*
RB			Garrett Graham
WR	Patrick Mauti*	Royce Adams*
WR		Aaron Valentin
WR
TE	Mickey Shuler		Mickey Turner
TE	Andrew Quarless*
OT	Dennis Landolt	Zach Jones
OT	Ako Poti*
OT	Nerraw McCormack*
OT
OG		Zach Reckman
OG
OG
C	Doug Klopacz*	Jared Zwilling
C
DE	Jerome Hayes	Keyon Brown*	O'Brien Schofield
DE	Tom Golarz*
DE
DT	Jared Odrick	Mike Neal	Daniel Moore
DT			Dan Cascone*
DT			Jeff Stehle
LB	Sean Lee	Jason Werner	Jaevery McFadden
LB	Navorro Bowman**
LB	Josh Hull
LB
CB	Knowledge Timmons	Brandon King
CB	A.J. Wallace*	David Pender
CB	S. McCullough*
S		Torri Williams	Chris Maragos
S		Dwight Mclean
S
S
K
P	Jeremy Boone	Chris Summers
Total	17	15	8

* indicates non-starting contributor
** indicates early entrant
Source: www.rivals.com, www.foxsports.com, www.scout.com

Since the conference didn't lose as many players as my original diary suggested, the turnover won't have the repercussions I had hoped.  Unfortunately many of the stars decided to return to school, including most of the Ohio State defense and offensive stars like John Clay from Wisconsin and Evan Royster from Penn State. 

On the plus side the Big Ten should once again be strong out of conference, but it will make for a challenging season for our Wolverines. 

Go Blue!!