For the last 81 years, the NFL Draft has been a widely celebrated event in which some of the top players in the ranks of college football go through one last step in their “coming of age” process and find out where they will be playing their first few years of professional football. And the 82nd year will be no exception.

Fans like Andy Espinosa-Woodward, tune in to find out which bright young playmaker could possibly be the savior of their franchise, or the one that keeps their winning traditions afloat for many more years to come. “I hope the Browns mess up and choose Garrett at one,” Espinosa-Woodward said. “As a die hard 49ers fan I want nothing more than for Garrett to fall to the second overall pick so we can just grab him right up.”

Every year heading into the draft, there is usually a little bit of speculation about who is going to be picked, and where they will be chosen.

“I honestly don’t know who’s going where this year,” Brandon Ahlgren, senior, said. “I think it’s all going to be a mystery. I just hope that the Seahawks end up with someone who is going to make an impact.”

In year’s past there is at least a bit of consistency with expert analysts’ mock drafts or a team or two will accidentally leak a draft pick. Something always happens. But this year, there has been no such thing.

Everywhere you look, there is a different mock draft being posted by someone at ESPN, Bleacher Report, or any type of sports coverage media outlet and the results are all different. No one has a similar mock draft, and to add on top of that no teams have ‘accidentally leaked’ anything yet. This draft, while being one of the most loaded at many positions like defensive end and defensive back, is very thin at other positions like offensive line. This creates no consistency with expert’s analysts’ because with so many guys with high ratings, you just don’t know who is going to end up where. All of this though just means that this year’s draft is going to be a good one.

All of this mystery and hype will create quite the scene in Philadelphia tonight as one by one, college players will make their dreams come true and walk across the stage while hearing their names called to begin their professional careers.

“The draft is always fun for me to watch,” University of Oregon bound offensive lineman Alex Forsyth, senior, said, “because, especially as a football player heading to college, I know the type of hard work that they’ve put in to get to that point. Seeing guys that I’ve watched on Saturday’s make their dreams come true is something that I could only imagine would be incredible.”

No matter who is picked and where it’s at, the NFL Draft will always be great to watch because the pure emotion and joy of the players is something that can’t be replicated. Football is an emotional game, and it’s only fitting that many great careers start with something as simple as their name being called to walk across the stage.