Rumblings Draft Scouting: Bills Reportedly Like Luck, Ponder

Every Saturday during the college football season, we'll have an open thread for readers of Buffalo Rumblings to discuss college football games. The thread is open to any and all collegiate discussions, but the posts themselves will emphasize draft prospects. This is, after all, a Buffalo Bills blog.

We've only gotten through a quarter of the NFL regular season, and we've already got the first report about which quarterbacks the Bills like in the draft-eligible 2011 crop. Shane Hallam, who works with Scott Wright over at DraftCountdown.com, threw this little snippet into his first mock draft of the season: "Word is they like Luck and Ponder more than any other potential QBs this year."

That, folks, would be Stanford redshirt sophomore Andrew Luck and Florida State senior Christian Ponder.

Luck, at the moment, is the near-consensus best quarterback prospect in the nation. Ponder is widely considered the third or fourth-best prospect, and he's currently struggling through a somewhat sluggish senior campaign in which he's been hampered by a triceps injury. Clearly, it's supremely early, so it'd be ill-advised to get excited or angry at Buddy Nix over this type of report. It's merely noteworthy; store it in the back of your minds, keep watching college quarterbacks, and wait to see if the Bills are even positioned to take one of these guys come January.

More after the jump.

Buffalo Rumblings' Mid-Season Top 25
This will probably be the only official ranking you get from the Rumblings scouting staff until the 2011 calendar year. There's just no point updating these types of rankings more than once or twice until it actually matters, but we wanted to put this out there to reflect what has happened in the early portions of the 2010 college season.

Full disclosure: this isn't completely consensus. I threw my Top 25 out to the scouting group, did not hear any major complaints, and so we're rolling with this. Therefore, consider it officially unofficial; if you were to ask an individual scout, you'd probably see a bunch of minor tweaks. This isn't ironclad, so don't get your panties in a bunch if something pisses you off - it's still only October 9.

Week 6 Preview
There are many more games that will be on TV than are listed here, but if you're in the mood to watch the hot prospects, these are the games you need to check out.

NOON: There aren't many interesting games at noon. Indiana at Ohio State will be your best chance to see an elite draft prospect, with defensive lineman Cameron Heyward (No. 15 above) the best player on the field. That game will air on ESPN.

3:30: Pittsburgh at Notre Dame is a tasty matchup, with three of our Top 25 players - Pitt receiver Jonathan Baldwin (No. 19), Notre Dame receiver Michael Floyd (No. 21) and Irish tight end Kyle Rudolph (No. 16) - all on the field. That game is on NBC, with the venerable Mike Mayock doing color. Also on: Ryan Mallett (No. 14) and Arkansas at Texas A&M (ABC), Clemson at the defense-heavy North Carolina (ABC/ESPN), and a loaded Alabama team at South Carolina (CBS).

6:00: If you're into Arizona quarterback Nick Foles, tune into Versus to check out Arizona and Oregon State, who have a pretty intriguing QB prospect of their own in sophomore Ryan Katz.

7:30: Two of the best corners in the nation, Patrick Peterson (No. 5) and Janoris Jenkins (No. 11) square off when LSU meets Florida on ESPN.

8:00: Both of Buffalo's apparently preferred QB prospects are on tonight. Luck (No. 1) and Stanford take on USC on ABC, and Luck is expected to have a huge game against a very suspect USC defense. Ponder and Florida State, meanwhile, meet Allen Bailey (No. 10), Brandon Harris (No. 13) and Miami, also on ABC. (So you might not actually get to see both guys.)