Monday's big commitment was defensive tackle Jeffrey Whitaker, who chose Auburn over Georgia and Miami. Whitaker visited Miami over the weekend and informed coaches from Miami and Georgia of his intentions Sunday night.

In my 500 Words or Less article this week, I had noted that "USC is considered the frontrunner" for the services of wide receiver Markeith Ambles. According to VolQuest.com, however, Ambles is not all too happy with the former Vols/current Trojans coach. "I still like him, but I'm mad at him," Ambles said of Lane Kiffin. He also said of Tennessee assistant coach Lance Thompson, "That's my guy. We've been guys since the last time I was being recruited with coach (Lane) Kiffin and them." Take that how you will, but from the sound of it, Ambles is headed to Tennessee... although more than a few experts predict he's head to North Carolina.

Some of the nation's top uncommitted recruits will be making their decisions Wednesday. Here's a quick breakdown of the top uncommitted prospects from the 2010 class:

(Overall rank: Rivals, Scouts, Max Preps, ESPNU)

(2, 1, 1, 8) Seantrel Henderson, OT: Choosing between Florida, Miami, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma and USC. Ohio State is considered the frontrunner, but fans at Notre Dame and USC feel they have a better shot than people think. Henderson will announce on CBS College Sports Network.

(5, 5, 51, 33) Keenan Allen, S: Allen will choose from Alabama, Cal and Clemson. The general consensus among Rivals recruiting experts is that he'll sign with Cal, although Max Preps and ESPNU have him marked as a 'Bama commit. BamaOnline, however, seems to agree with the Rivals panel of experts. "After leading big for most of the recruiitng [sic] process, it looks like Alabama had [sic] now become the longshot in a group of schools that include [sic] Cal and Clemson."

(8, 49, 41, 17) Owamagbe Odighizuwa, DE: Owa is considering Oregon State, UCLA and Nebraska. He reportedly knows where he's headed, or at least has a pretty good idea, but will wait until Signing Day to make it official. As far as which way he's leaning, well that depends on whose fans you ask. Nebraska seems to be the favorite...and remember what happened the last time they nabbed a highly recruited defensive lineman from Portland.

(9, 13, 79, 30) Da'Rick Rogers, WR: Rogers is listed as a Georgia commit by Rivals, Scouts, Max Preps and ESPNU. So why does a five member panel on Rivals unanimously list him as a likely Tennessee commit? Rogers has spent two straight weekends in Knoxville, high school teammate Nash Nance is expected to sign with Tennessee on Wednesday and rumors are rampant that Rogers will follow suit. This would be huge if new head coach Derek Dooley can steal one from an SEC rival.

(10, 9, 2, 19) Marcus Lattimore, RB: He's narrowed it down to South Carolina and Auburn so you statistically have a 50/50 chance of guessing who he'll choose on Wednesday. Unfortunately for Gamecock and Tiger fans, Lattimore has given few hints that would tip the scale in either direction.

(20, 59, 71, 27) Christian Jones, OLB: Jones has plenty of suitors, but the big three seem to be Florida, Florida State and Notre Dame. General consensus at this juncture: FSU.

(22, 72, NR, NR) Shon Coleman, OT: Coleman is a soft verbal commit to Auburn, but his recruitment is generally seen as up in the air. Coleman visited Arkansas and Miami in the final two weekends of the recruiting season, but Alabama fans remain confident that they will sign the 6'7 285 pound lineman. Ole Miss is feeling confident, too.

If you are an Indianapolis Colts fan, short of Peyton Manning being hurt, the Dwight Freeney news is about as problematic of an issue as you can have.

Will Freeney be able play?

At this point, whether or not he plays is almost irrelevant. They may be able to shoot him up and get 60 minutes out of him. With the extended Registered Sex Offender Show... I mean THE WHO Super Bowl half-time concert, that's about four hours. Either way, there just isn't any way that Dwight Freeney will be able to wreak havoc in the Saints backfield.

At 6'-1" 268 lbs, Dwight Freeney is a small man by NFL lineman standards and his game is speed and quickness. There is no way that he can be a force having a torn ligament in his ankle.

Freeney's absence or limited presence will be missed more than if he had gotten hurt in the game. If there was some way to not have let the news become public that would have helped, but that's not an easy thing to do in the NFL, in fact you are required to disclose these things (although we know that doesn't always happen.)

Knowing that Freeney will not be there or not the same force that he would otherwise be means the Saints will be able to game plan accordingly. Whereas with a healthy Dwight Freeney the Colts would have to choose who to double, Freeney or Robert Mathis, now the choice is made simple and the game plan can be tailored that way, whether Freeney plays or not.

If there was any chance that there was going to be any resistance from the Colts defense that has now all but gone away. You can write it in stone, the Colts will at least have to put up 30 points to win this one. Assuming there is no monsoon in Sought Florida on Sunday, the game will be tantamount to a track meet.

Peyton Manning single handedly took the Colts on his shoulders last week against the statistically the best defense in football and took over the game. At one point in the second half, Tom Moore even stopped sending in plays and just let Manning call it on them on the field. If the Colts are going to win this game he will have to have a repeat performance.

A recap of what went down and what you should take away from the week in college football.

Big news of the week: Senior Bowl and the approaching Signing Day. National Signing Day is on Wednesday and there are still some unknowns out there that have some college fans biting their fingernails. For those of you who don't know, Signing Day is when recruits from around the country sign their Letter of Intent to play football for a particular school.

Some recruits make their college decisions known early, saving fans the heartache and suspense. Others wait until Signing Day. And still others drag it out even longer...

Recapping the week in 500 words or less, this is what we learned:

• The Senior Bowl's biggest star was Michigan defensive end Brandon Graham who walked away with 2 sacks and a forced fumble. He was named MVP of the game. Central Michigan quarterback Dan LeFevour was named the North team's Most Outstanding player on 5 of 10 passing for 97 yards and a touchdown. He also ran for a touchdown. Both players are projected as first day picks, with Graham projected by some as a first rounder.

• I'm sure I'm obligated somehow to mention Tim Tebow. He was 8/12 and fumbled twice.

• Once-estranged Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount rushed the ball 7 times for the North for 36 yards and a touchdown. Considered by many a first day pick and one of the better running back prospects in the country before the season started, Blount is now considered a second day pick by most analysts. The combine and team interviews will be a key proving ground for Blount to quell any on- or off-field concerns.

• Mississippi State linebacker Jamar Chaney led everybody with 8 tackles, while Iowa linebacker A.J. Edds came away with a fumble recovery and an interception. Florida State cornerback Patrick Robinson finished with 6 tackles and a pass breakup.

• Cincinnati wide receiver Mardy Gilyard had a disappointing week of practice, dropping several passes, but finished the game as the leading receiver with 5 catches for 103 yards and a touchdown, including a 43 yard reception and a 32 yard reception that went for a touchdown.

• On to recruiting. Bookend offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson remains the nation's top uncommitted recruit. He is ranked #2 overall by Rivals, #1 by Scouts and MaxPreps and #8 by ESPNU. He has just completed his final official visit at Miami, which he rated a "perfect 10" according to CaneSport.com, but the general consensus has been that he will be sporting scarlet and gray come Wednesday.
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The college football season is over; withdrawals, depression, misery. Before you slip into an apathetic stupor for eight months, remember that the NFL Draft is just around the corner! From now until April's NFL Draft, I will be profiling some of the more interesting prospects. I can't promise that I'll get to your favorite player, but if you'd like to see a certain player profiled, shoot us an email and let us know.

When Jordan Shipley was granted a sixth year of eligibility after the 2008 season, Big 12 defenses were plagued with nightmares all spring and summer. When 2009 rolled around, their worst fears came true and their nightmares became reality. Shipley torched opponents for 116 receptions for 1,485 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2009, all single-season school records.

While defenses were not too thrilled to see Shipley return, the extra year in college did wonders for his NFL readiness. He is now one of the most mature, NFL ready prospects in the entire draft regardless of position. That's not saying he'll be burning NFL defenses in 2010 or will even develop into a team's top receiver, but Shipley will undoubtedly find a home in the slot or as a second receiver on an NFL offense.

The biggest concern among scouts is his size. Shipley is 6'0 190 pounds. He's not the biggest wide receiver in the draft and has had to overcome leg and hamstring injuries early in his career at Texas so the risk of injury concerns some teams. If you can come to terms with his size, get over the injury woes he's faced and don't expect him to be your team's top receiver, then Shipley is your guy.

Whenever Colt McCoy needed to move the ball for a first down, who did he turn to?

Shipley.

Whenever the Longhorns were in desperate need of a big play, who did they turn to?

Shipley.

When Texas needed a reception to get Garrett Gilbert in rhythm in the title game, who did they turn to?

Shipley.

His dependability and good hands make him an absolutely ideal candidate to play the slot in the NFL. Some have even compared him to Wes Welker because of his underrated quickness and his ability to catch the ball in traffic.

You just can't make this stuff up.

We are still more than a week away from kickoff in Super Bowl XLIV and the NFL, the institution that is the marketing envy of not just the sports business world but the business world in general has a PR nightmare on its hands.

The two week layoff between Championship Sunday and the Super Bowl is intended to have the hype of the biggest game on the biggest stage with the largest viewing audience slowly build to a crescendo and culminating with the drama of the actual game itself.

This year, instead of talking about Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Marquis Colston, Reggie Bush, defense, anyone or anything about defense; we find the focus of Super Bowl XLIV on anything but football.

America's Game has America's problems

The NFL who's labeled itself America's Game has now taken on America's problems. This week's media focus has been on Mr. Saint" himself, Archie Manning and the moral issue of who he should root for, Tim Tebow and his ‘right to life' TV commercial, the Pro Bowl and the joke that it has become, and now arguably (along with the ‘right to life' topic) the most controversial issue of all; the resurfacing of news that the leader of the half-time show, Peter Townshend of 'THE WHO', was on the registered sex offender list in the UK for five years.

Inflaming the sensitivity are now rumors that Townshend is furious about the resurfacing of the news and may try to take a ‘dig' those badgering him by playing ‘See Me, Feel Me'.

The band has however publicly released its set list. Reportedly they will be playing a medley of 'Baba O'Riley', 'Pinball Wizard', 'Tommy', 'Who Are You' and 'Won't Get Fooled Again.'

Florida-based "Protect Our Children" wants the NFL to reconsider letting 'THE WHO' perform, and even sent 1,500 "sex offender advisory" postcards to homes and schools, warning residents to watch out for Townshend.

Townshend was a registered sex offender in the UK for five years after his arrest for using a Web site advertising child pornography. He said he was merely doing research for an upcoming book.

He was cleared by police, but was still placed on the sex offender registry as a caution because he accessed images of child abuse.

(You don't think they'll be mad that I said that do you?)

For an institution that is the marketing envy of not just the sports business world, but the business world in general, the NFL sure has managed to screw thing up.

It's bad enough that the game isn't real football. Without going into detail, the offense basically can't attempt to trick the defense and the defense can't .........well...... play defense. No zone, no blitz..... Occasionally they do allow tackling.

But if you are going to parade your league All-Stars out there for the public to see, how can so many of the league's All-Stars not play?

There are so many screwed up aspects to this game that I can't begin to count them.

• How do you have an AFC squad where David Garrard is in the game, but Peyton Manning and Tom Brady aren't?
• Brett Favre had the best year of his Hall of Fame career and people were talking about him being a league MVP along with Chris Johnson (if it weren't for Peyton Manning) isn't playing for the NFC? Sure he got the crap kicked out of him last week, but he's not hurt, he'd be playing if his team won and they were in the Super Bowl.
• Nate Kaeding can't play because he is injured? Since when his being embarrassed because you are statistically the best kicker in NFL history but can't make a playoff field goal an injury?
• I could go on with many of these but you get the point......

The NFL has 88 players participating in the Pro Bowl (44 players on both the AFC and NFC rosters), but 34% of the Pro Bowl players had to be replaced because they are either injured, embarrassed, or playing in the Super Bowl?

Fantasy-Friendly RedZone Drives NFL Network Growth

That was the piece we ran on November 19, 2009 profiling the NFL Network's NFL RedZone channel. At that time, the NFL Network was aggressively penetrating households across the nation. Just few months later, the NFL Network is being more aggressive than ever.

The National Football League is now planning to make its RedZone Channel available to cell phone users next season. Viewers would see the same stream of action as the people watching at home as the coverage bounces from game to game.

If this actually happens a number of people are going to be really pissed off.

Does your wife or girlfriend watch football with you on Sunday's?

• We I sure hope so as wives and girlfriend are going to go nuts as men across America will be watching their cell phones on Sundays everywhere from Church to their kids sporting events. There will be nowhere that is off-limits for Sunday NFL Football and domestic incidences will occur all across the land. A nationwide fight for attention will spontaneously break out as ‘significant others' become increasingly insignificant by about week #3 in the 2010 NFL season.

• The executives from News Corp.'s Fox and CBS Corp. are going to cry foul. The two networks each pay the NFL about $1.4 billion each season to air live games on Sunday afternoons and an expansion of the RedZone Channel has the potential to erode the audience for some of its most reliable-and expensive-programming. Are advertisers going to want to pay -up for programming that's also available on the RedZone Channel and own on every one's portable media device too?

For my part, this is really insane stuff. When I was a kid we didn't even have cable TV, that didn't come until 1981 when I was 14 years old where I lived on Long Island, NY. I was a huge Jets fan as a kid, and if they didn't sell out Shea Stadium, the game was blacked out on NBC who had the AFC contract at the time. Forget about seeing teams from around the country, I couldn't even see my home town team.

Earlier last week, ESPN.com analyst Mel Kiper released his first 2010 NFL mock draft and the first five picks were set as follows:

1. Defensive Tackle, Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska - St. Louis Rams
2. Defensive Tackle, Gerald McCoy, Oklahoma - Detroit Lions
3. Safety, Eric Berry, Tennessee - Tamp Bay
4. Quarterback, Sam Bradford, Oklahoma - Washington
5. Offensive Tackle, Russell Okung, Oklahoma State - Kansas City

There aren't any big surprises here. The Rams, unless a good trade is proposed to them, would have to be insane not to take Suh with the first pick in the draft. Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo is a defensive-minded guy so you just know he is foaming from the mouth just thinking about inserting Suh into his defense.

The next two teams, Detroit and Tampa Bay, have plenty of holes on the defensive side of the football so it's not shocking both are set to pick stellar defensive players.

Here is where it stars to get a little confusing.

Washington is the only team in the NFL to not pick an offensive lineman in the first two rounds since 2000 when they picked offensive tackle Chris Samuels. The Redskins haven't picked ONE offensive lineman in TEN years! Now, Washington has a top five pick and, according to Kiper, there is an offensive tackle worthy of being chosen within the first five picks.

Why would the Redskins take a quarterback in the first round of the 2010 draft (Besides the fact that it's Washington.)? They have been plagued with offensive line problems for more than two seasons. Jason Campbell has been getting beaten up game after game, yet he has still produced decent numbers (Just imagine if he was as lucky Mark Sanchez... Sanchez got play for a team that traded away Chansi Stuckey and got Braylon Edwards in return!). Peyton Manning wouldn't even be able to survive with the offense around Campbell.

No, Campbell didn't have a good season. He dropped shotgun snaps, fumbled the ball when nobody was around and he also threw 15 interceptions. Overall, he just didn't look like he knew what he was doing, more so in the first half of the season than in the second half.

Don't get me wrong. What Jim Leavitt did for South Florida was remarkable. He brought the program from operating out of trailers and holding meetings under shade trees to bordering on the state of Florida's fourth football school.

I say "bordering" because the Bulls are not quite there. They're streaky to be honest, going from ranked #2 in Week 7 of the 2007 season with 11 AP first place votes to losing three straight and four of their final seven games including the Sun Bowl against Oregon. I don't mean to sound negative about what Leavitt did as head coach, but to be considered in the same class as Miami, Florida State and Florida, you have to win 10 games in a season at least once, or maybe a dozen times, and South Florida has never done that, not even in Division 1-AA.

Leavitt did have the Bulls on their way, though. Who knows, maybe if he were given a couple more seasons USF would have gotten that elusive 10 win season. But after the 'incident' it became clear that it was time for a change.

Don't worry Bulls fans, Skip Holtz is just the man to take over what Leavitt started. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that Holtz will do what Leavitt did not do in nine seasons in the FBS and take the Bulls to their first 10 win season. I'll even go as far as to say that the Holtz hiring is the best hiring of any program this offseason; better than Brian Kelly to Notre Dame and Lane Kiffin to Southern Cal.

How He Got Here

Holtz began his coaching career as a graduate assistant with Bobby Bowden at Florida State, but his football education likely began the moment he came into this world as the son of Lou Holtz, then a young coach just beginning his own coaching education. By the time the younger Holtz was 28 years old, he was an offensive coordinator at one of the most storied programs in all of college football: Notre Dame.

Working under his dad, he worked closely with the eventual second overall pick in the 1993 NFL Draft, Rick Mirer. Mirer recalls his time with Skip, only six years older than he, as an enlightening experience. "We knew he was just getting started in coaching, but he knew a lot of football. As a player, you were drawn to the guy because there was a positive energy around him. Not everybody is like that. He was always very positive, very enthusiastic, a high-energy coach, upbeat and optimistic."

The big Tebow news has not been his struggles taking snaps from center at Senior Bowl practice or even the shirtless pic of Tebow at the Senior Bowl weigh-in featured on TMZ's website (why?), but rather a commercial scheduled to air during the Super Bowl that has the 2007 Heisman winner speaking on behalf of Focus on the Family, a pro-life Christian group.

Oh, boy.

The issue has, needless to say, sparked major controversy.

Tebow will appear in the commercial with his mother Pam. The two will reportedly tell the story of Mrs. Tebow's decision to ignore her doctors' advice when they recommended she have an abortion during her difficult pregnancy with Tim.

How does Tebow feel about the controversy? "I know some people won't agree with it," he said, "but I think they can at least respect that I stand up for what I believe, and I'm never shy about that."

He's also quoted as saying, "I don't feel like I'm very preachy about it, but I do stand up for what I believe. Unfortunately, in today's society, not many athletes tend to do that. So I'm just standing for something."

Tebow's stance of "I stand up for what I believe" has not satisfied the many groups lobbying CBS to scratch the Super Bowl ad.

Dozens of women's advocacy groups and other liberal organizations have written a letter to CBS urging them "to immediately cancel this ad and refuse any other advertisement promoting Focus on the Family's agenda."

The letter also says, "By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers, and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers."

Something tells me the other side doesn't agree...

According to ABC news, Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, does not understand the controversy surrounding the commercial. "There is nothing political or controversial about the spot. It's a personal story about the love between a mother and son," he said.

ABC News also reports that, according to a source at CBS, "the words 'abortion' and 'pro-life' do not appear anywhere in the ad."

So how did CBS respond to the pleas to drop the ad? "At CBS, our standards and practices process continues to adhere to a process that ensures all ads -- on all sides of an issue -- are appropriate for air. We will continue to consider responsibly produced ads from all groups for the few remaining spots in Super Bowl XLIV."