While his head coach and some members of his family considered it to be the wrong decision, USC quarterback Mark Sanchez decided to skip his senior year of college to join the NFL draft. Obviously Pete Carroll wanted him to stay at USC for another year because it would have made the Trojans one of the favorites to win a national championship next season, but personally I think Sanchez made the right choice. With Sam Bradford, Colt McCoy, and Tim Tebow all deciding to stay in college next season, Sanchez vaults up the draft board into a top-five pick, maybe even #1 overall.

That’s a lot of money, and frankly the only way I could see this back-firing on Mark is that if he gets picked first and goes to Detroit. Not only would he be playing on a worse team than the one he was on in college, but think of the drop in talent of the local ladies. This could be devastating. Which is why Mark needs a good agent to make sure that the Lions realize he isn’t the quarterback they need, so I am kind of worried that Sanchez’s choice of his brother may not be the best decision.

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MARK SANCHEZ’S FATHER FIGHTING SAN DIEGO WILDFIRES: Jason King of Yahoo Sports (via RUMORS AND RANTS) reports that the father of USC QB Mark Sanchez, Nick, is currently fighting the Southern California wildfires.

Just 48 miles from the USC practice fields where Mark gets ready for Oregon this Saturday, father Nick, a captain with the Orange County Fire Authority, has been battling the arson-fueled blaze. And as of yesterday afternoon, Dad was still out on the front lines, having not been home in almost a week.You would think this would be a major distraction for Mark, as he gets set to start (yes, he probably will) his third straight game this Saturday at Autzen Stadium, but his Dad has seen more dangerous duty in the past - if you can imagine:

Excerpt: “As a member of the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team, Nick floated from house to house in New Orleans looking for survivors before retreating to his “bed” each night at the SuperDome.”

Here’s a link to the story of Nick in New Orleans in the ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER (be sure and scroll down).More from Yahoo: “In 1995, Nick was summoned to Oklahoma City to help recover bodies from the rubble of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building after it was bombed by Timothy McVeigh.”

Needless to say, the Oregon game is probably the least of Mark’s worries. And if a scintilla of his dad’s leadership and work ethic has rubbed off on Mark, the Trojans would be foolish to go back to John David Booty.