Preps Are Not Jumping at Ruling

Jimmy Miller, a 6-foot-5, 250-pound USC-bound defensive end from Westlake Village Westlake, was eating lunch Thursday when told that a federal judge had cleared the way for high school players to be eligible for the NFL draft.

Miller wasn’t impressed.

“I think it would be ridiculous for a high school or college freshman to go directly to the NFL,” he said. “Even the best high school football players now, I don’t think any are good enough.”

Even if the 17-year-old Miller wanted to enter the NFL draft, his mother, Susie, said she wouldn’t let him.

“I personally feel [high school players] have not reached full maturation or emotional maturity,” she said. “There’s a risk of injury and perhaps they don’t have the life experience to be in the world of the NFL. They would have to be a freak of nature.”

If there is a high school player in the nation this year who might have the physical strength to try the NFL, it’s Jeff Byers, a 6-4, 285-pound lineman from Loveland, Colo. He signed with USC on Wednesday and is considered the top offensive lineman in the nation. He was credited with 34 “pancake” blocks -- in one game. People have told him he’s “as big as a Denver Bronco lineman.”

But he’s not ready to find out if that’s truth or hyperbole.

“For me, as an athlete, I know I’m not ready physically and mentally,” Byers said. “Football isn’t like basketball ... The level from high school to the pros is 100 times different. You’re playing with bigger, faster guys who can hit the snot out of you. You’re going from a playbook maybe six or seven pages long in high school to six or seven inches thick in the pros. It’s too hard for any normal high school kid I believe.”

Jim Clausen has two sons, Casey and Rick, who are quarterbacks at Tennessee, and another son, Jimmy, who’s a highly regarded freshman quarterback at Westlake Village Oaks Christian. He views the decision by U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin to make Ohio State sophomore running back Maurice Clarett eligible for the NFL draft as adding a provocative new element to the football scene.

“It’s so Disneyland,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense. What happens after athletics? You still have to be able to get a job and be able to read and write and be a productive human being in society. The best thing that happened to Casey in four years at Tennessee was he graduated from college. I’m not sure if it wasn’t for athletics, Casey would have been motivated to go to college and finish in four years.”

Long Beach Poly has produced more NFL players than any high school in the nation, but Coach Raul Lara doesn’t expect his players to suddenly start passing up college.

“You really have to be something special to go straight from high school to the NFL, and I don’t think that’s going to happen, but you never know,” he said. “I think people will start thinking about it.”

Miller wonders how an 18-year-old would try to fit in among NFL veterans.

“After games, they probably drink together,” he said. “How do you connect? I’m just a high school kid.”