Here's how big the Super Bowl is this week: First-round draft picks are helping out as on-call chauffeurs.

Former USF cornerback Mike Jenkins, who just finished his rookie
season with the Cowboys, laughs about it, but he's told the Cardinals'
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, one of his closest friends since childhood
growing up in Bradenton, that he'll drive him around town this week.

"I told him if he needs anything, I'll come and get him," said
Jenkins, who missed the playoffs in his first season in Dallas. "He's
like my brother, so we have to look out for each other."

Rodgers-Cromartie and Jenkins talked regularly throughout the draft
process last spring and through their rookie seasons. They'd text each
other if one got an interception, helping each other as both went
through the same difficult transition.

"I've leaned on him, asked him questions, him being from a bigger
school, because he's used to talking in interviews, getting attention,"
said Rodgers-Cromartie, who went to Tennessee State. "I talk to him
almost every day. We're real close. We played on all the Little League
teams together, and we would have played together in high school, but I
moved. We've always stayed in touch."

Jenkins said he's been pulling for Rodgers-Cromartie throughout the
playoffs, and was pulling for another friend and corner from Bradenton,
Baltimore's Fabian Washington, hoping they'd meet up in Tampa.

"I'm definitely rooting for the Cardinals," Jenkins said. "I wanted
both of them to make it. If they did, I guess I'd have to get one of
those jerseys, half-Cards and half-Baltimore."

-- Basketball note: Lots of Gus Gilchrist references up in Maryland, where there's some griping between Terrapins coach Gary Williams and his administration about the circumstances that led to Gilchrist transferring to USF. Here's a story from the Baltimore Sun and here's the Washington Post.