As I said earlier, Elam is another player with unrealistic fan expectations. Too many people think a star rating is everything there is to know about a player. When Elam signed, the football players I know told me he was 50-60 pounds overweight and in terrible condition. They said he needed a redshirt and it would take 2-3 years to get him into good condition. Some fans still think Stoops didn't redshirt Elam because he will leave for the NFL soon. That's a fantasy. I heard last year that Stoops didn't redshirt Elam because the coaches didn't believe Elam would focus on conditioning and lose weight if he sat out a redshirt year. They played him last year to keep his mind on football. From that standpoint, it worked. Elam is in better shape now, but still a year away from where he needs to be. But fans are still worrying about how high Elam will be drafted by the NFL. That remains premature. For now, we should only worry about whether Elam can get in the shape he will need to play 40 snaps a game. Once he gets there, then we will see if he can keep his pads low enough to be an SEC starter and hold his ground against the best SEC guards. Then we can speculate about the NFL. To be fair, he is on the right path now.