This weekend is one of the biggest in Kyle Johnson’s and Quentin Harris’ lives. The former Syracuse football players find out if they’ll fulfill a lifelong dream by being picked in the NFL Draft.

So what are they doing this weekend? Camping out on a couch, waiting for their names to be read off an NFL index card? No.

How about waiting by the phone for a call from an agent or future coach? Nope, guess again.

This weekend, Harris will spend some quality time with his daughter Aliyah watching a movie.

And his roommate Johnson?

‘I’m not gonna watch it,’ Johnson said. ‘My father can watch it. It’s two days long. I’ll go to the movies, rent some videos, go to the driving range. No way, no how am I sitting around two days. It’ll drive you crazy.’

The wait until Sunday, however, may drive some of Johnson’s teammates crazy.

Along with Johnson and Harris, P.J. Alexander, Willie Ford and a host of other Orangemen hope to survive the wait.

Wednesday night, Graham Manley and teammate Sean O’Connor went out to dinner with their agent Bob Elgidely. At Carousel Mall, they ordered wings and relaxed, trying to ignore the draft while everyone except their teammates insists on talking about it.

‘It’s nerve-racking,’ O’Connor said. ‘Kinda like a game week. You don’t want to get pumped up too early. I try to keep my mind on other things.’

‘(The waiting) is different,’ Johnson said. ‘You’re always aware of what day it is. You sleep like a cat. If you hear something, you’re ready to jump up.’

Dwight Freeney should be the first to jump up on Saturday. He’s expected to be chosen within the first few hours. The rest, according to their agents, will probably have to wait until Sunday.

Only Ford and O’Connor are projected to go in the middle rounds, their respective agents, Harold Lewis and Elgidely, said. Agents predict the rest will be chosen in the later rounds while some will certainly go undrafted.

Former Syracuse assistant coach Brian Stewart, now an assistant with the expansion Houston Texans, said Ford and O’Connor will probably both go between the 4th and 6th rounds, while the rest will be drafted during the final two rounds or won’t be drafted.

‘On this team there’s Freeney and then there’s everybody else,’ Lewis said.

But it’s not just every other Orangeman grouped together. After the first three rounds, the entire draft becomes more difficult to calculate.

‘After you get past the first three rounds, it’s all mushed together,’ Stewart said. ‘One team likes this guy because of his speed, while another team doesn’t for another reason.’

‘Anything can happen on draft day,’ Lewis, an agent for 19 years and representative for James Mungro, Ford and Maurice Jackson said. ‘Some teams won’t have talked to a guy, but they’ll draft him. All it takes is one team to fall in love with your guy.’

Harris’ agent Brad Blank said Stewart and the Texans have Harris rated as the 175th best player in the draft. With over 260 picks, that sounds promising. But, on occasion, teams are still picking players in their top 100 during the seventh round.

Manley and Johnson face two of the more difficult draft-day situations.

Johnson, a fullback, plays a position that is not considered highly valuable by many teams.

‘There’s a finite number of fullbacks who get drafted,’ Johnson’s agent Mark Lepselter said. ‘Some teams place a higher value on the position than others.’

Like most of his teammates, Johnson has heard wide-ranging predictions.

“It’s really an insult to my intelligence,” Johnson said. “I’ve heard everything from third-round to seventh round to undrafted.”

Manley, meanwhile, joins a tight-end class featuring Miami’s Jeremy Shockey and Colorado’s Daniel Graham. Manley said he’s been told this year’s class is one of the strongest ever.

With no lectures to attend and only lifting and TV to keep him occupied, Manley has done his own research, printing out old drafts and counting the number of tight ends chosen. According to his careful calculations, between 11 and 14 tight ends are usually chosen each year. SU’s tight end doesn’t rank in the ESPN, The Sporting News or CBS Sportsline top 10.

While Elgidely said he expects Manley to be drafted — thanks in large part to his individual workouts and performance at Minnesota Vikings receiver Chris Carter’s speed training camp — he said going undrafted isn’t necessarily a negative.

Each NFL training camp features an extensive number of undrafted free agents. While only 246 athletes were chosen in the 2001 draft, 573 went to camps without being selected. And 101 of those made opening day rosters. When a player goes undrafted, agents are able to handpick a team that doesn’t have a lot of depth at his position.

‘Once you get beyond the fourth round no one is guaranteed a spot,’ Lepselter said. ‘As long as you can put your ego aside and bust your ass, you have as good a chance as anyone.’

But for most of the Orangemen, it’s too early to think about that. No matter what their agents and sources tell them, they know they could go at anytime.

‘At first I was nervous,’ Harris said. ‘Now I’m just taking the ‘whatever’ approach.’

Published on April 18, 2002 at 12:00 pm