NFL Draft Leaves More Than Half of Juniors Out in Cold

Brad Gaines, the Vanderbilt wingback who decided to forgo his senior season to take a shot at pro football, knew better than to sit around a silent telephone Sunday.

Although the NFL drafted five rounds of players that day, Gaines was confident that he would not be among them, and he wasn’t.

But he expected a call Monday. When in the final seven rounds it never came, he reluctantly took his place on a singular 1990 list: After 38 college juniors had been ruled eligible for the NFL this year, “18 were drafted and 20 weren’t,” a spokesman for NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Tuesday, recalling that he had tried to discourage all of them from entering the draft.

USC’s Junior Seau was one of the 18. Gaines was one of the 20.

“Last season I led the Southeastern Conference in receiving,” Gaines said from Nashville, Tenn. “And I outplayed a lot of guys at the Indianapolis tryouts last month. At the least, I expected to go in the last couple of rounds.”

So did 19 others. What happened? How could so many college juniors gamble away their senior season?

An analysis of their credentials shows that for most, it wasn’t a good bet. Most were longshots. Many had had academic problems and were out of school anyway. Only two or three were as qualified for pro ball as Gaines. And, in fact, only three were starters last season on major college teams.

The breakdown:

--Seven of the undrafted 20 had come out of such unlikely schools as Oregon Tech and McGill.

“The smaller the school, the more you need the experience of a senior season,” George Young, general manager of the Giants, said from New York.

--One wasn’t even a junior. He had played no college ball.

--Four were kickers or punters who weren’t going to make it.

Dick Steinberg, general manager of the New York Jets, said: “Only great kickers are drafted.”

--Four were backups who did not even impress their college coaches last season.

--That leaves only four who ever had played as big-school starters, the only ones who had any realistic chance.

One of these was Gaines. The others were Washington free safety Eugene Burkhalter, Houston cornerback Cornelius Price and Minnesota’s 1988 fullback, Octavius Gould, who was academically ineligible last season.

“I was surprised that Burkhalter wasn’t drafted,” his coach, Don James, said from Seattle. “He’s a good football player whose speed, I guess, was held against him. He could have been a starter for us the rest of his life.”

The Houston defensive back, Price, who stands 5 feet 10 and weighs 180, was a more typical junior applicant. Price had been declared academically ineligible for spring practice, and was taking makeup courses across the street at Texas Southern, when he decided to pack it in and shoot for the pros. They weren’t interested.

The Minnesota fullback, Gould, 6-1, 219, had blocked in 1988 for Darrell Thompson--the prize-winning halfback chosen first by Green Bay Sunday--but the pros are reluctant to take a player who sits out the season before the draft, as Gould did in 1989.

They are also reluctant to take backup players. One of these is defensive back Anthony Burnett, the UCLA junior accepted for the draft this week.

Burnett, a good special teams player who was on the field for only 24 scrimmage plays in 1988, had two strikes against him: Academically ineligible, he missed 1989. And he never started for the Bruins.

Other junior backups in the draft this week were fullback Braxton Banks, who played behind Anthony Johnson at Notre Dame; Danny Cash, a second-string tackle at Alabama, and Sean Barowski, who in two seasons of college football was a backup fullback first at Penn State and then at Syracuse.

Actually, Banks, who is expected to graduate next month, would have been a redshirt senior at Notre Dame.

As a Vanderbilt starter, Gaines had a better pro chance than most of the others.

“I think the NFL is missing out on a good one,” he said. “They like backs who catch the ball well, and you’re talking to one. Looking back, I think I decided to come out too late. I only decided on the day of the deadline, and that didn’t give (the scouts) enough time.”

Gaines and the Washington defensive back, Burkhalter, both expect to catch on as free agents somewhere in pro ball this spring, although, at the moment, some scouts consider Burkhalter, 6-1, 200, a bit too heavy and too slow.

“They timed him in the 4.7 category,” the Husky coach, James, said. “How fast do you suppose Ronnie Lott is now? A good player can excel without great speed. We felt that if (Burkhalter) got his body fat down some he’d be as quick as you see.

“His other problem is that he got an agent, and that makes him ineligible (for college football) under NCAA rules. You don’t need an agent at Washington. We have three faculty members here well versed in pro contracts and the like.

“Next time, if one of our players applies to the NFL and doesn’t have an agent, we’ll take him back, if he wants to come back, and challenge the rule.”

That’s next time. This time, there are 20 football-playing juniors in limbo.