Every Sunday morning I devote at least an hour of my time to listening to “Sportstalk”, a call-in talk show hosted by Todd Stevens.

It really is a very good call-in show, but there is rarely any controversy.

It was very simple and light-hearted, until this Sunday.

This Sunday Stevens claimed to have some unofficial rumors from the combine.

He reminded the listeners that these rumors were not necessarily true, but since there was an interest, he would repeat them.

He said that Troy Davis had a terrible combine, and didn’t even run the 40.

He did point out that he had heard Hanspard ran the 40 in 4.3 seconds, and that Troy’s stock may be plummeting below that of even Calvin Branch.

This is when Stevens began to speculate.

He said Troy Davis made a mistake.

He said Davis obviously needed another year to work on his skills, and leaving ISU before his senior year was a mistake that would hurt his draft status in a running back heavy draft.

I didn’t disagree. I have heard rumors that Davis has slipped all the way down to a fourth round draft pick. Some people think it is rather obvious Sedrick Shaw will be drafted before Davis.

Also, on the Internet where Mel Kiper Jr. once had Davis as the ninth best player in the draft, he now no longer ranks, sort of. Kiper Jr. just released a rating of the top 30 players who are coming out of college early to enter the draft. Guess who isn’t on the list.

Could things get worse? NO! The next thing I saw was yesterday’s USA Today where Gordon Forbes ranked Troy Davis the fifth best prospect available in the draft.

This report was released according to combine ratings and USA Today research, and did not include Peyton Manning.

However this report threw a couple of Kent Tekulve curveballs at me and many others who claim to know anything of college athletics.

The No. 1 can’t-miss superstar of the draft according to these statistics was Rae Carruth. Yes, the receiver for Colorado came in before Orlando Pace even.

I researched the stats to find out how Carruth could beat Pace. Carruth ran a very impressive 4.38 in the 40, but so did Hanspard and where did he come in? 30th.

According to this report, Davis was the No. 1 running back with 4.55 speed and even the No. 2 underclassman behind only Orlando Pace.

There is no possible way that this combine rating could be entirely true, there are too many inconsistencies.

However, Stevens could not be all that correct either.

Combine ratings are usually not released to the press this early, and what the press does receive is usually either rumor or hearsay.

I think that USA Today has all the correct information at its disposal. Rather than believe a word of any of this, I suggest just ignore the information the combines, experts, and newspapers tell you. Wait until two weeks before the draft, then usually it all starts to make sense.

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Cade Remsburg is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Ames.