Roundup: Marcus Mariota's legacy is secure as he enters the NFL draft

Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota declared for the NFL Draft, and ESPN's Chantel Jennings says his legacy will be hard for others to touch. 

Mel Kiper Jr.'s first mock draft at ESPN has Marcus Mariota going second overall, to the Tennessee Titans. There's plenty more Pac-12 representation in the first round. Kiper has USC defensive end Leonard Williams (third), UW tackle Danny Shelton (12th), UW linebacker Shaq Thompson (14th), Oregon defensive end Arik Armstead (17th), former UW corner Marcus Peters (20th), Stanford offensive lineman Andrus Peat (25th) and ASU receiver Jaelen Strong (29th) going in the first round. 

Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton are back in Seattle. OK, so it's Shawn Kemp Jr. and his Washington Huskies facing off against Gary Payton II and his Oregon State Beavers. Nonetheless, they have Seattle Sonics fans' attention, writes the Seattle Times' Percy Allen. 

After upsetting Arizona at Gill Coliseum, the Beavers will have road demons to face at Washington. Here are five things to watch, from The Oregonian's Connor Letourneau. 

USC football fans probably expected to see Leonard Williams, Nelson Agholor and Buck Allen leave for the NFL early. But losing junior receiver George Farmer to the draft is a surprise considering a productive senior season could have helped him.

Bruce Pascoe talks with ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, who will be calling the Arizona-Colorado game with Bill Walton on Thursday evening. That means Bilas has prepared by “listening to a lot of Grateful Dead, burning incense and tie-dying (his) clothes in (his) backyard.” 

The Buffs aren't making excuses, reports Brian Howell, but they could be without starting forward Xavier Johnson and center Josh Scott at Arizona. Johnson suffered an ankle sprain against Utah in CU's last game, and Scott has been dealing with back spasms for a while now. 

Utah running back Devontae Booker will return to school for his senior season, which gives the Utes a little stability heading into 2015 after losing offensive coordinator Dave Christensen. 

247 Sports recruiting analyst J.C. Shurburtt tells Doug Haller that Arizona State football's 2015 recruiting class, which is ranked in the top-25, doesn't have a lot of reaches. Things are only trending up with National Signing Day less than a month down the road. 

Head coach Mike Leach named Alex Grinch as Washington State's new defensive coordinator on Wednesday. Grinch leaves his gig as a safeties coach at Missouri.

UCLA freshman Kevon Looney did some bad things to the Trojans' hoop on a putback dunk during Wednesday night's 83-66 win. 

Jonathan Okanes of Cal Athletics pens this feature on Cameroonian Roger Moute a Bidias, who grew up loving soccer but eventually found his way to the Golden Bears basketball team. 

Stanford went into Berkeley Wednesday night to hand Cal another loss, the Bears' sixth in seven games, behind Chasson Randle's 25 points.