Early Exits: Jordan Todman and Shane Vereen, durable dwarves

At 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-10, respectively, and weighing in the neighborhood of 200 pounds, neither UConn's Jordan Todman nor Cal's Shane Vereen is going to bowl over scouts with prototypical workhorse size. But both have remained healthy despite shouldering some of the heaviest rushing loads in the country over the last two years, and as Friday night, both have decided to skip their senior seasons to enter the NFL Draft, per the Associated Press.

Todman – coming off a relatively quiet emergence as one of two UConn backs over 1,000 yards in 2009 – barreled his way to nine 100-yard games in eleven starts this year, including a 33-carry, 113-yard effort against West Virginia and a 37-carry, 222-yard night against Pitt in back-to-back midseason upsets, sparking the Huskies' stretch run to the Big East championship. With 116 yards on 32 carries in Saturday night's Fiesta Bowl loss to Oklahoma, he moved to No. 2 nationally in rushing yards (1,690), yards per game (140.8) and carries per game (27.8) for the season, earning him a nod as the Big East's Offensive Player of the Year and a first-team All-American by all five of the largest college football outlets on the web.

Vereen never had such gaudy numbers, and depending on how their respective careers shake out at the next level, he may always be remembered at Cal as the guy who spelled the spectacular Jahvid Best. Even in Best's oft-injured shadow, though, Vereen stood out, most notably by shouldering 72 carries (for 352 yards and four touchdowns) over the course of the Bears' back-to-back November upsets over Arizona and Stanford after Best was lost was for the season in 2009. With the backfield mostly to himself this year, Vereen turned in 1,167 yards with five 20-carry games, this time in the shadow of the Golden Bears' descent to eighth place in the Pac-10. He was one of only two members of the offense (along with offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz) who even made the cut as a second-team all-conference pick.

He's hardly a first-round lock in April, either; nor is Todman. But there may not be a first-round back in the outgoing senior class, and Todman and Vereen could both be among the top four or five juniors off the board, giving them a good chance at going somewhere in the first three rounds. If you're going to take a weekly beating, you might as well get paid for it.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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