NFL DRAFT PREVIEW : Fullerton Defender Seems Titan Among Southland Prospects

Mark Collins was playing eighth-grade football in St. Louis the year his mother made a career decision.

Boarding a train, Eunice Collins brought Mark and her six other children--three boys and three girls--to California, where she found employment at an aircraft company near Banning.

It was eight years ago that she and the children resettled in San Bernardino. This week they’re planning to reach another milestone.

Discussing it the other day, Ron Wolf, the Raiders’ chief scout, said: “I think most NFL scouts would tell you that Mark Collins has first-round ability. He might be the first cornerback drafted Tuesday.”

If a Los Angeles area athlete has that kind of ability, he must have played his college football for USC, right?

Wrong.

For UCLA, then?

Wrong again.

Collins played for Cal State Fullerton, where, in four years as a starter, he earned this comment from Dick Steinberg, the New England Patriots’ chief scout: “We think Collins will be one of the top three L.A. area athletes drafted.”

Often in other years, the first three were Trojans. Sometimes, in fact, three Trojans have been drafted in the first round.

That won’t happen this year.

“The leading (L.A.) prospects are from three different colleges,” said Les Miller, chief scout of the Kansas City Chiefs. “They are James FitzPatrick, Mike Sherrard and Mark Collins.”

FitzPatrick is a USC offensive tackle who stands more than 6 feet 7 inches, weighs more than 285, who is getting bigger, and who, if Tuesday’s draft follows form, will become the Trojans’ first-round blocker of the year. Since 1968, 14 offensive linemen from USC have entered the NFL as first-round choices.

Sherrard is a UCLA wide receiver who has height, 6-2; heft, 186; speed, a reported 40-yard time of 4.4, and a goal: to leap from UCLA walk-on to NFL first-round choice. Scouts say that the only prospect with more speed in the 1986 draft is Bo Jackson, the Auburn running back.

Of the top three in this area, Collins, the Fullerton cornerback, is the stockiest at 5-10 and 195, as well as the second fastest. He has the speed, a reported 4.45, to cover close and deep.

“I can’t wait for the (NFL) challenge,” Collins said.

With such disparate types of blue-chip prospects from the Southern California area, which of the three figures to be drafted first?

Two Midwestern scouts came up with different answers.

One said: “Off the record, in the order of their NFL ability, our call is Collins, Sherrard, FitzPatrick. In the order of the way they’ll go: FitzPatrick, Sherrard, Collins.”

The other, Miller, said: “All three are potential first-rounders, and all are rated pretty much the same. Who goes first depends on who’s drafting and what they want. If you need a wide receiver more than an offensive lineman, you’ll take Sherrard over FitzPatrick. If it’s a cornerback you want, you’ll take Collins first.”

Steinberg said that FitzPatrick is the safest and most traditional high pick in this area and, therefore, the best bet to make a first-round connection.

“He has the size that means so much at offensive tackle today,” the New England scout said. “And he has been a three-year starter at a university that breeds offensive linemen.”

Making the case for Sherrard, Wolf said: “He has the size, hands, body control, athletic talent and all-round receiving ability of a No. 1.”

To the college football fans of Los Angeles, Sherrard and FitzPatrick need no introduction.

Collins, however, isn’t so widely known. Although he enlarged the circle of attention somewhat last fall when he made the Sporting News’ All-American team, Collins is still mainly a Fullerton phenomenon.

“He’s the highest-rated pro prospect we’ve ever had,” said Mel Franks, Cal State Fullerton publicist.

A big-play type, Collins was the 1985 defensive player of the year in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn., which NFL scouts admire for the way it throws the ball.

The PCAA’s joint offensive players of the year were both passers, Kevin Sweeney of Fresno State and Doug Gaynor of Cal State Long Beach.

Gaynor is a quarterback who ranks among the most gifted four or five in Tuesday’s draft after Jim Everett and Chuck Long, the Big Ten pair.

A 6-1, 208-pound, short-pass artist, Gaynor has the ability to supplant FitzPatrick or Sherrard or Collins as one of the local big three on draft day.

So do several others--John Lee among them. A record-setting UCLA kicker, Lee has first-round talent. But the scouts are saying that he may be this year’s victim of the general NFL perception that all kickers are erratic.

Gaynor’s chances improved when his accuracy improved from excellent to extraordinary last season. He completed more than 70% of his 1985 throws and finished as the Hula Bowl’s offensive MVP.

His problem is to convince an NFL team that he can throw the long pass. In 1979, Joe Montana, who couldn’t, went in the third round.

As PCAA opponents, Gaynor, Collins and other members of the Long Beach and Fullerton teams spent last year honing one another for the NFL. At least two and possibly three Fullerton receivers--James Pruitt, Cornelius Redick and Allen Pitts--are expected to be drafted this week.

Still, no PCAA player has been getting more NFL attention than Collins, who was so effective last season that he was often isolated and ignored by the offensive teams he faced.

“No sense trying to get the big spoke in the wheel,” Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy said.

Asked to define Collins’ strengths as a cornerback, Murphy said:

“The intangibles. What’s inside him. He’s an intelligent, fierce competitor who, if beaten, will bounce back. The unusual thing about Mark is that he was ready to play, mentally and emotionally, as a freshman.”

He had lettered in three sports at San Bernardino’s Pacific High School after moving west with his family.

In NFL terms, one knock on Collins as a cornerback is his height, which is a concern to Kansas City’s Miller and others.

Another problem, Steinberg and others point to, is Collins’ technique when he turns under a long pass.

Murphy dismissed the second criticism as inconsequential. Of the first, he said:

“The NFL will find that Mark is tall enough. Their wide receivers are getting smaller these days, too.”

Said Collins: “(Height) is out of my hands. Can’t do much about it now. But if the other thing is a negative, that’s in my jurisdiction. I can handle that.