Gearing Up For the Senior Bowl

It's that week of the year. The week where we reminisce on the past college football season while evaluating some of the best NFL prospects as they gear up for a meaningless game. And while the Senior Bowl does have slightly more of a competitive edge than the Pro Bowl, it's the week of practices that makes the Senior Bowl something special.

This year the huge story entering Saturday's game is Tim Tebow and how his game will translate to the pro level. Earlier today Chris Mortensen reported via Twitter that Tebow looked really bad at practice. Though I'm sure Tebow, who is arguably the greatest college football player of all time, will heat up at some point, his draft stock is definitely on the line this week, despite a performance for the ages in the Orange Bowl.

While Tim Tebow is definitely the "A" story this week (and once the Super Bowl is over he'll become the "A" story of the next 2 months), several of his South Team teammates will be interesting to evaluate as well. Taylor Mays, Terrence Cody, and Dan Williams are all projected to be first round picks. Though you're probably saying to yourself "why would I watch a game if a team has only three projected first round picks on it?" Understand that this is an opportunity for a lot of these players to raise their draft stock in a year that features more junior prospects than ever before.

The North team is lead by quarterback Tony Pike of Cincinnati who looks to get his revenge on Tebow for the Orange Bowl blow out. A few potential first rounders that Pike is going to war with include Mike Iupati, Jared Odrick and Sean Weatherspoon, and Jon Asamoah.

Pike and Tebow will also be battling one another for their position in the bottom three of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL draft.

Pike and North team are lead by the Detroit Lions coaching staff while Tebow and the South are lead by Steve Spagnuolo and the Miami Dolphins coaching staff. This bit of information is important because in the past Bill Parcells has given Tim Tebow the biggest endorsement the Heisman winner has ever received by stating that Tebow is a first round pick.

This will be a perfect opportunity for Tebow to prevent Parcells from eating his own words.