Things have been relatively quiet around here of late because, genius that I am, I decided to leave the largest player groupings — outfield and pitching — as the last set of 2011 college prospect rankings. I’m going on two solid weeks right now of configuring just the outfield list and I’m happy to finally announce the rankings will be published shortly. In the meantime, some quick figures that show just how crazy it is paring down the crowded college outfield player pool…

• Current Word Document size: 5,740 words, or 18 pages in size 14 font (nice and big so I can view three pages at once at 50% zoom)
• Current number of players listed: 225, not counting the handful of junior college/small school guys I need more info on

Meta-posts like this where I talk about how much work I’ve been putting in on a ranking without actually delivering any worthwhile content are extremely obnoxious. I’m sorry. To begin to make amends, here’s an extremely (extremely) unfinished look at the prospects that rank at certain random benchmark spots on the list. I’ll use the numbers retired by the Detroit Lions (7, 20, 22, 37, 56, 85) to serve this purpose. In order, a special thanks to Dutch Clark, Barry Sanders, Bobby Layne, Doak Walker, Joe Schmidt, and Chuck Hughes for apparently being so damn good at football.

7. Clemson JR OF Will Lamb
20. TCU JR OF Brance Rivera
22. Miami SO OF Zeke DeVoss
37. Western Kentucky JR OF Kes Carter
56. Southern JR OF Rodarrick Jones
85. Stetson JR OF Spencer Theisen