The CBS Sportsline mock draft currently lists nose tackle Sedrick Ellis as the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft.

Long Beach Poly recruits Vaughn Telemaque and Jurrell Casey officially make their college choices tonight at 10:30 p.m. We hear they already committed to USC a couple days ago. This would hardly be a surprise, especially because Casey’s pretty much been locked in to USC since last spring.

A USC commit from Southern California spoke to another school this week and one of the first topics that came up: Pete Carroll’s interview with the Washington Redskins.

EA Sports will visit the Galen Center tomorrow night to gather information on the arena for its March Madness video game.
“Everything that makes the Galen Center, its fans, and USC unique will be captured, including arena architecture, student section seating, crowd chants, school fight songs, cheer team, and mascot routines.”
Five arenas will be selected for the game and one will be available before the others online for free download, depending on who receives the most votes at this website: www.marchmadness08.com
Maybe the Pauley Pavilion version can include the USC band and song girls when you pit the crosstown rivals against each other.

When safety D’Anton Lynn of Celina, Texas, showed up to take a picture at the Dallas Morning News, he arrived with a USC hat, Oklahoma hat and a Penn State sweatshirt. Lynn is officially considered a “soft verbal” for Penn State.

USC assistant coach Sam Anno is a candidate for a job on the coaching staff at Texas Tech.

A memorial for former USC coach Larry Smith will be held on Monday at 2 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Ariz. The church is located at 7650 N. Paseo del Norte.

We hear there’s a handful of secret commitments for USC right now as signing day approaches in a week.

USC is an unimpressive 18th in the latest Scout.com rankings, but I’ve consistently said that team rankings are too subjective in recruiting. When USC was always No. 1, it was a dose of nice publicity, but that’s not what makes the Trojans a perennial title contender.
Besides, I’m reminded of Billy Packer’s recent quote. “This may make all the recruiting experts angry but (O.J.) Mayo is a good player, he is not a great player . . . he could be a good player. He is not a great player.”
That was a criticism directed at the recruiting experts, not Mayo.