Stars mean more in Lucky Charms than during recruiting

While the first day of Senior Bowl practices featured the expected Tim Tebow smotherage - and apparently, it wasn't a very good day for him - the story that grabbed my attention was that of O'Brien Schofield. The Wisconsin defensive end tore his ACL at practice, which will likely drop him from a second or third rounder to an undrafted free agent or very late selection. We're likely talking about at minimum a 2-3 million dollar injury for the kid. I can't imagine what a moment like that feels like, although Schofield says his religious faith is helping him cope.

Football recruiting is eight days from wrapping up, with the gurus from outlets like scout.com (whose fightingators.com site I also write for, although not about recruiting) saying Florida is looking like they will not just sign the number one class but potentially one of the highest rated ever. If you're a Gator fan that's nice, but it means very little until you see how they look on the practice field and in games. Remember, Steve Spurrier's highest rated wide receiver he ever signed was Steve Shipp, with Brock Berlin his best QB and Damien Hill his most touted CB signee. All of them failed to produce in Gainesville, and it was apparent pretty quickly that they weren't what they were supposed to be. If Urban Meyer and his staff want a kid, that should be reason enough to believe in him regardless of ranking. Instead, after getting a commitment from Connecticut QB and previous Temple pledge Tyler Murphy over the weekend the UF staff is getting second guessed on message boards and in my inbox. I have no idea what Murphy can do, having only seen a few highlights, but if anyone's recruiting skills should be above question at this point it ought to be Urban Meyer and his staff. Want to know why some people think Florida fans are unreasonable? Micromanaging a scholarship in a recruiting class expected to finish number one would be an example.

With the Super Bowl approaching, that means it's time for new commercials to make their debut. Lots of time will be spent on this topic in the next couple of weeks, but the last few years haven't had many ads that I can remember. That was not the case with the Larry Bird-Michael Jordan "nothing but net" ad for McDonald's. CNBC just did a look back feature about the making of the spot. The most interesting fact to me: Bird had to challenge Jordan to shoot for his lunch because of concerns about media coverage of Jordan's gambling at the time.

The Scorpions must be Brett Favre's favorite band. They've announced that they're going to retire as a group - right after a three year world tour. Considering they haven't had any success in the US since "Wind Of Change" twenty years ago, this probably doesn't come as Earth shattering news. As long as there are county fairs though, some carnie will still be playing "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and screaming "DO YOU WANT TO GO FASTER?!" - so the Scorpions have got that going for them