Can you smell it?
Yep, that's the smell of spring practice in Big Ten country. And it now includes 100 percent more palm trees thanks to Jim Harbaugh.
As Michigan prepares to take its spring camp down south, Northwestern's spring practice is officially underway, and it won't be long until the rest of the conference follows suit. Add in the NFL combine taking place in Indianapolis, and it's a surprisingly busy time in the Big Ten, which means it's also a good time for a Big Ten mailbag.
As always, you can tweet your questions to me each week @BenAxelrod.
Now, let's get this thing rolling.
This is what I love about today's sports climate: The 2016 NFL draft is still more than two months away, but it's never too soon to start looking ahead to 2017.
(At least that's what I assume this question is about, as Joey Bosa is undisputedly the best Big Ten prospect in the upcoming draft.)
While this year's draft will be Big Ten-heavy, thanks in large part to Ohio State and to a lesser degree Michigan State, next year's draft will likely be a less impressive showing for the conference. WalterFootball.com—one of the few sites to run mock drafts more than a year in advance—currently projects six of the 2017 draft's first seven picks to hail from the SEC, with the first Big Ten player not coming off the board until the No. 11 pick in Michigan safety Jabrill Peppers.
After that, Walter Football slates just four more Big Ten players to be picked in the first round, including Iowa cornerback Desmond King, Ohio State center/guard Pat Elflein, Michigan State defensive lineman Malik McDowell and Ohio State linebacker Raekwon McMillan.
Five first-rounders from the Big Ten going in 2017 would likely be less than the number of ex-Buckeyes who will go in this year's first round. What's more, no star of the 2017 crop already stands out like Bosa, Jack Conklin, Ezekiel Elliott, Connor Cook or even Christian Hackenberg did at this time last year.
At the moment, however, I point to Iowa's King as the league's top prospect, due in large part to the premium placed on cornerbacks in the NFL. In a passing league, players who can cover a multitude of wide receivers are especially valuable, and King can certainly do that.
Obviously, a lot can change in the next year, and players' stocks will rise and fall. But for now, it's hard to imagine the Big Ten's 2017 class living up to the lofty expectations set by its predecessor.
Well, first, let me answer your question with a question: Are we sure the best quarterback in the Big Ten is J.T. Barrett?
After all, Iowa's C.J. Beathard returns as the reigning second-team all-conference selection, while Barrett was left off the 2015 postseason lists following his season of shared playing time with Cardale Jones.
Then again, considering that Barrett accounted for just one fewer touchdown (22) than Beathard did all season while receiving almost half as much playing time, I'm certain Barrett—the 2014 Big Ten Quarterback of the Year—deserves the billing of the league's top signal-caller entering 2016.
Behind him, however, the pickings in the league are slim following the departures of Cook, Hackenberg, Nate Sudfeld and Jake Rudock. Beathard is the obvious choice for the answer to this question, but even he was more game manager than playmaker in 2015.
After Beathard, you could make semi-compelling cases for Tommy Armstrong Jr. at Nebraska and Mitch Leidner at Minnesota bouncing back after disappointing junior campaigns. Wisconsin's Bart Houston is one to keep an eye on, as he's already impressed in the limited playing time he received behind Joel Stave in 2015.
Ultimately, however, nobody comes close to touching Beathard's and especially Barrett's resumes. Last season, the Big Ten possessed one of its most impressive crops of quarterbacks in conference history, but this year will need to see new signal-callers emerge to continue that trend.
Just who those players will be remains to be seen.
But for now it's Barrett, Beathard and everyone else.
A few weeks ago, this would have been the easiest question to answer.
But somewhere during his feud with the SEC, Harbaugh stopped subtweeting and just started saying what he actually felt, 140 characters or less at a time.
See what I mean?
For all intents and purposes, I'm not sure Harbaugh qualifies for this question because, quite frankly, he's stopped subtweeting.
With that in mind, I'm going to go with Ohio State wide receivers coach Zach Smith, who might be the college coach most affected by the NCAA's recent decision to outlaw subtweeting. Smith consistently toes the line of tweeting about prospects without actually tweeting about prospects.
Smith has also engaged in beefs with the Michigan coaching staff, which allegedly negatively recruited against his inexperience. His youth, however, has served Smith well on social media, where he's become one of college football's best—and most subliminal—tweeters.
Until Harbaugh starts being a little less blatant, Smith will hold the crown. But for now, Harbaugh hardly even qualifies as one of college football's top subtweeters.
Unfortunately not.
While I buy Harbaugh as an actual wrestling fan, as evidenced by Ric Flair's presence at "Signing of the Stars" and the Michigan head coach's front-row seats at this past week's Monday Night Raw, I simply don't see the same passion for sports entertainment from Urban Meyer.
This picture of him with WWE legend Goldust, however, does exist, and I'll take any opportunity I can to share it.
Meyer also possesses a relationship with WWE superstar Titus O'Neil (real name Thaddeus Bullard), who played defensive end at Florida before Meyer ever arrived in Gainesville. I once asked Meyer about one of O'Neil's visits to Ohio State when WWE was in town, and he stared at me like I had a third eyeball, so there's that.
But while a Harbaugh/Flair vs. Meyer/Goldust is unlikely to happen at WrestleMania 32—or any wrestling pay-per-view, ever—it's always fun to fantasy book in pro wrestling. And not just with Harbaugh and Meyer but the rest of the college coaches as well.
If we were going to do this, the most intriguing battle would be a tag team matchup with Harbaugh and Meyer joining forces—it's always fun when rivals do that—with Michigan State's Mark Dantonio to take on Team SEC, consisting of Nick Saban, Les Miles and Gus Malzahn. Or maybe we should throw Dan Mullen in there, just to add another mentor-pupil storyline to the mix.
Then again, when it comes to Harbaugh's feud with the SEC, there hasn't seemed to be much of a difference between college football and professional wrestling this offseason. All we need now is the match—which I'm sure Harbaugh would be more than willing to make happen.
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten lead writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of CFBStats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.
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