Clemson, USC and Georgia are all represented in another pro football draft

The players from Clemson, South Carolina and Georgia who heard their names called in the recent NFL draft will soon make their way to training camps, hoping to crack the opening day rosters of their respective teams.

Clemson’s Maurice Fountain, USC’s George Gause and Georgia’s Jermaine Wiggins have been caught in a draft themselves, although you might not know about it.

The fledgling United Football League, which will begin play in October with franchises in New York, Orlando, Las Vegas and San Francisco, held its inaugural draft last week. Each club selected 24 players with Fountain going to New York, Gause to Las Vegas and Wiggins to Orlando.

Obviously, these guys are not fresh out of college.

Fountain, a defensive end, finished up at Clemson in 2005 and went undrafted. He tried to make the Miami Dolphins lineup but was cut, and has spent most of his professional career playing indoor ball.

Last year he competed with the Utah Blaze in the Arena Football League, which is on hiatus in 2009.

Gause signed with the Buffalo Bills out of college but was released during the preseason, and he has also been paying the bills thanks to the AFL. Last year the big defensive tackle starred for the Grand Rapids Rampage and was one of the team’s defensive leaders.

Wiggins, a wideout, had brief stints with six NFL teams, including the Carolina Panthers, where he played in 2001-02.

His most recent NFL gig came with the Jacksonville Jaguars, where he was released in 2007 after sustaining a concussion during a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers.

A glance at the UFL draft shows a common thread — castaways from the NFL who have stayed in the game via the indoor route are snatched up pretty quickly.

By the time the 60-man UFL rosters are announced the teams will be fleshed out by NFL training camp cuts. The new league is playing a mini-season in 2009 (six games) and doesn’t begin competition until October, so it’ll have its pick of guys who played in a few preseason games but got caught up in the numbers game.

Since it appears Michael Vick will have to sit out at least one more year before resuming his NFL career, smart money says he’ll suit up for Orlando. That might be the only “big ticket” name the new league will be able to sign this season, which makes you wonder if the football-watching public will bother to tune in for its Thursday night telecasts.

At any rate, for guys like Fountain, Gause and Wiggins, the UFL offers a chance to keep playing football, keep making money and maybe — just maybe — earn one last crack at the NFL.

And I’m guessing once NFL training camps are done, it’ll prove to be a refuge for other former Clemson, USC and UGA stars as well.

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