Tony Pike and Mardy Gilyard in the NFL Draft

The Bearcats 2009-2010 football season ended on the sour notes of head coach Brian Kelly leaving to fill the vacant job and Notre Dame and the Sugar Bowl loss to the Florida Gators. That isn’t what fans will remember most about this past football season though. They’ll remember the excitement of Mardy Gilyard’s play and the accuracy of Tony Pike’s arm before they remember what coach went where and who won what bowl game.

Tony Pike and Mardy Gilyard both finished their collegiate careers in the greatest season ever in the 125 year history of Bearcat football. Now they move on to the NFL. Until draft day, both Pike and Gilyard will be poked and prodded like a dog in the Westminster Kennel Club. Scouts will pick them apart and name every minor fault and weakness that each player has and why that minor fault or weakness could spell disaster for any team who even thinks about drafting them. Finally, the players will showcase their physical abilities in the NFL Combine and then comes the draft. Until draft day, there is really no way of knowing what player will go to what team. There will be countless mock drafts but none of them will be right on. There is always a surprise.

Trying to predict where Pike and Gilyard will be playing next year is difficult, especially for Pike. University of Cincinnati is a small school not known for top notch NFL players and while that is slowly but surely changing, it will be a factor for Pike and Gilyard.

Gilyard will probably go first due to the fact that he is a duel threat and wide receiver is a position that can play almost immediately in the NFL. Gilyard has proved that he is a return specialist in college and NFL scouts will find that very attractive about him. They will also like his route running abilities, his ability to catch the ball, his ability to run after the catch, his attitude and his story. The NFL loves a good story and Mardy Gilyard, much like Michael Oher last year, is extremely marketable. It is fairly conceivable that Gilyard could get drafted in the early second round.

Tony Pike is a different story. Traditionally, quarterbacks don’t play right away in the NFL and the ones that do usually don’t do very well. Peyton Manning is one of the very few exceptions to this rule. Where Pike goes in the draft will completely depend on the needs of NFL teams and how desperate they are to fill those needs. If a team that needs a quarterback to start immediately drafts Pike then it will probably be fairly early in the draft; late 1st to early 3rd round. If a team drafts Pike with the plan to let him develop under a veteran started then Pike could fall anywhere from the 3rd to 5th round. Scouts will be worried about Pikes durability in the NFL because of the two broken forearms that he had playing for the Bearcats in the past two years. What the scouts will like about him is his arm strength, his accuracy, the fact that he throws a very catchable ball, he is mobile inside the pocket and can sense pressure, he keeps the ball up high on his shoulder before he throws and his physical size.

The NFL is a completely different monster than college football and for the next couple months, scouts will be breathing down Pike and Gilyard necks, trying to see exactly how they tick. Hopefully their experience at University of Cincinnati has prepared them for the biggest “job interview” of their life.