University of Pittsburgh star tailback LeSean McCoy is expected to announce Friday he will turn professional.
Two family sources confirmed that McCoy is scheduled to meet with Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt tomorrow and, barring a last-minute change of heart, plans to declare hardship to enter the April 25-26 draft. The application deadline for underclassmen is Jan. 15.
The news may stun the Pitt campus.
As recently as Monday, Wannstedt said he expected McCoy to return for his junior season.
The 6-foot, 205-pound McCoy, a two-time first-team All-Big East selection, is eligible because he is three years removed from the graduation of his high school class. McCoy left Harrisburg's Bishop McDevitt High midway through his senior year and spent three semesters at Milford Academy, a prep school in New Berlin, N.Y., before enrolling at Pitt.
McCoy evaded questions about entering the NFL Draft all season. He declined comment for this story.
In November before Pitt played West Virginia in the 101st Backyard Brawl, McCoy said he was "definitely" returning.
"There's a lot of stuff I've got to prove," McCoy said. "I don't think I did enough here at this university. There's a lot left to achieve here."
Wannstedt told reporters in a teleconference Monday that, after discussions with McCoy and his parents both before and after the Brut Sun Bowl, the tailback was "excited to come back for another year."
Daphne McCoy, the running back's mother, said Monday the family was awaiting a report from the NFL Draft advisory board, which graded McCoy a first-round pick. Fear of injury appears to be a key factor in the decision. A fractured leg ended McCoy's high school senior season early.
McCoy rushed for 1,488 yards and 21 touchdowns on 308 carries this past season, ranking 10th in the NCAA in rushing and tied for second in scoring. He became Pitt's first back-to-back 1,000-yard rusher since Curtis Martin in 1988-89.
McCoy's 2,816 rushing yards topped the 2,690 yards gained by Pitt legend Tony Dorsett in 1973-74. Twenty-one underclassmen have already declared for the NFL Draft, including three running backs: Iowa junior Shonn Green, Connecticut junior Donald Brown and Georgia redshirt sophomore Knowshon Moreno.
Pittsburgh has the Steelers pursuing a Super Bowl XLIII berth, one of the brightest young stars in the NHL in Sidney Crosby, and, well, we'll just skip the Pirates.
Now, the city also claims the top-ranked men's college basketball team in the country as its own.
For the first time in the 101 seasons of Pitt basketball, the Panthers are No. 1, making the jump from third in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' rankings on Monday after previously unbeatens North Carolina (to heavy underdog Boston College) and Connecticut (to Georgetown) lost in the last week.
Pitt received 30 of 31 first-place votes, the other going to the third-ranked, 13-1 Tar Heels, as the coaches' top 10 endured a top-to-bottom shakeup.
Pitt improved to 14-0 after winning its first two Big East games (against Rutgers and Georgetown). Its win over the Hoyas was a smackdown -- a 70-54 victory for Pitt after Georgetown had just taken out UConn on the road earlier in the week.
"I don't think it will change anything for us," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon told ESPN.com's Andy Katz on Sunday night. "We've become rivals of schools over the years, rivals of schools that weren't rivals before."
Besides Pitt, the other undefeated Division I men's teams are Wake Forest (13-0), Clemson (14-0) and Illinois State (14-0). Wake, off to its best start since the 1996-97 season, plays host to North Carolina on Sunday.
The Panthers collected 774 total points in the voting, 60 more than No. 2 Duke (12-1), which was bumped three spots in the poll. Wake Forest was fourth, followed by UConn, with the rest of the top 10 looking like Oklahoma (13-1), Texas (11-2) and UCLA (12-2) tied for seventh, Syracuse (14-1) and Georgetown (10-2).
Eleventh-ranked Clemson kicked off the second 10 after a five-spot jump, followed by Michigan State (11-2), Notre Dame (10-3), Purdue (11-3), Marquette (13-2), Arizona State (12-2), Villanova (12-2), Xavier (11-2), Minnesota (13-1) and Top 25 newcomer Butler (12-1).
No. 21 Louisville (9-3), West Virginia (11-2), Baylor (12-2), Boston College (13-2) and Tennessee (9-3) rounded out the Top 25. Gonzaga, Ohio State and Michigan dropped out of the poll.
With the Steelers playing host to San Diego in the NFL's AFC divisional playoffs on Sunday, it could take some heat off Pitt this week. The Panthers' next game is Sunday against St. John's.
"[A No. 1 ranking] doesn't mean much to me, but it will mean something to other people," Dixon said Sunday night. "It won't mean much to our players. We've been consistently good, but at the same time we haven't won a national championship, so nothing changes."
Steelers linebacker James Harrison has been named the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year, according to the Associated Press.
Dallas linebacker DeMarcus Ware was second and Baltimore safety Ed Reed was third.
Harrison, who set a Steelers record with 16 sacks this season, is their first defensive player of the year since Rod Woodson in 1993. He is the fifth Steelers player to win the award. Every other Steelers player is in the Hall of Fame (Joe Greene, Mel Blount, Jack Lambert) except Woodson, who likely will be voted in next month.
