NFL draft weekend isn't just a great weekend for pro football fans. It's a great weekend for college football fans.

Pro football fans can celebrate, debate or berate the newest acquisition to their franchise. College football fans can count their blessings.

Their greatest blessing: Football is different from basketball.

NFL bylaws require that a player must be out of high school for three years to qualify for its draft. But college football has more than a rule protecting it.

Point guards might move seamlessly from college to the NBA. Quarterbacks don't.

There's so much to learn at every position in college football. There's also a matter of physical maturity.

Basketball is more about pure talent. And its best players are free to enter the NBA draft after their freshman season.

Imagine if it were as easy to go pro in football as basketball. The NFL draft would become a day of mourning for college football fans. Signing date would be different, too.

How excited could fans get about a No. 1-ranked recruiting class if they thought half the class would be on the way to the NFL a year later?

Take Tennessee, for example. It's tough enough on UT fans having to say goodbye to junior linebacker Jerod Mayo. But what if they also had to bid adieu to freshman safety Eric Berry?

If Berry had flashed as much potential in one basketball season as he did in football, he likely would be one-and-done as a college athlete. Now, UT fans can look forward to having him anchor their secondary for two more years.

Contrast that with Vols basketball.

Third-year UT coach Bruce Pearl pulled off a major recruiting coup last week when he signed McDonald's All-American Scotty Hopson from Hopkinsville, Ky. That signing further enhances UT's status as an emerging force in college basketball. It also fills a position of immediate need.

Hopson is a big, quick guard who supposedly can shoot from the perimeter or drive to the basket. What more could a UT basketball fan want?

Answer: At least three years.

Last year, the recruiting services credited Memphis with signing an outstanding point guard in Derrick Rose. And they were right.

Rose was good enough to lead Memphis to within seconds of a national championship. He also was good enough to declare for the NBA draft after one fabulous college season.

Fortunately for UT, Tyler Smith wasn't quite that good. He debated going pro after his second college season, then decided to return.

In back-to-back days, UT managed to sign Hopson and keep Smith. That's better than upsetting Memphis on a Saturday and being ranked No. 1 two days later.

But coach Bruce Pearl surely would sacrifice the dramatics for the relative security of college football. So would Ohio State basketball coach Thad Matta.

The difference between college football and basketball is most apparent in Columbus, Ohio.

Ohio State's 2006-07 basketball team advanced to the national championship game before losing to Florida. The loss was magnified when star players Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. turned pro after their freshman seasons. And just like that, the Buckeyes went from a potential three-year dynasty to a rebuilding year.

Contrast that to football, where Ohio State has played in back-to-back national championship games. Although the Buckeyes lost junior defensive end Vernon Gholston to the NFL draft, there will be no mass exodus of underclassmen. Instead, they will return 19 starters to a team that will be expected to play for a third consecutive national title.

So they should be counting their blessings, not their losses, on draft day. If they forget why, they can check with their basketball coach.

Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knoxnews.com.

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