The National Football League draft will occur on Saturday and Sunday in an annual ritual that has become a sport unto itself.

Televised on ESPN since the 1980s, the event has become a weekend phenomenon, with gaggles of commentators and the premier time slot for Saturday afternoon's sports broadcasts.

Fans will crowd the ballroom where it is held and cheer or boo their favorite team's picks.

It's all a testament to the power of American football: collegiate and professional.

This Saturday is mainly about pro teams and which players can help them win on Sundays, but the choices are just as important for college programs around the country.

For example, in 1997, North Carolina trailed only Notre Dame and Florida State with the number of alumni playing in the NFL. Following that 1997 season, three UNC players -- Greg Ellis, Brian Simmons and Vonnie Holliday -- were selected in the first round of the 1998 NFL draft.

All have enjoyed long, successful careers.

In all, 18 Tar Heels were drafted in the 1997, '98 and '99 drafts. This does not include the free agents that later signed on with teams.

Why did Carolina go 10-2 and 11-1 in Mack Brown's final two seasons? Those 18 players, plus the free agents, were the core of the team.

On Saturday, former Carolina defensive tackle Kentwan Balmer is predicted to be picked in the first round. If that happens, he would be the first Tar Heel to go that high since Julius Peppers and Ryan Sims were selected in 2002. The selections followed an 8-5 season in 2001 in which UNC should have won the ACC title and settled for a victory of Auburn in the Peach Bowl.

Last year, no Tar Heels were taken in the draft. None, as in zero. In 2006, Chase Page went in the seventh round to San Diego.

Want to know why Carolina football hit the skids once all of Brown's recruits finally moved onto the NFL? There's the clue: None of the eight Tar Heels drafted 2003-2006 went higher than the fourth round, and no more than three Carolina players have gone in any one draft since that gifted 2002 class.

That's a severe drop in the talent pool, according to the NFL's wise men.

Remember 1998? Three Tar Heels went in the first round.

Now you understand why Butch Davis and his staff are working so hard to evaluate and recruit the best possible athletes they can sign.

College athletics is about evaluation and recruiting. It's no mystery why Roy Williams' winning percentage has always been at the elite level. He recruits great players.

Anson Dorrance has so many retired jerseys for women's soccer it looks like a clothesline in someone's backyard.

Players win. Period.

Yes, coaches can lose games. Memphis proved that at the Final Four. There was little doubt who had the best athletes in San Antonio. Nevertheless, Kansas had the better coach and the best team.

Here is the secret to Davis returning the Carolina football program to prominence. When the first, second and third rounds of the NFL draft again start to have multiple names from UNC called each year, the Carolina teams those kids emerge from will have played in bowl games and possibly contended for the ACC title.

It's that simple. Not easy, mind you, but simple.

Recruiting is a rugged, nasty war, and it is similar to the way Jim Valvano used to describe basketball: "easy to understand, hard to do."

As for Balmer, his status is a credit to him for being coachable and working hard, but it is also a credit to Ken Browning, who saw him in high school, championed him as a relative unknown and then helped coach him at Carolina. It is also a credit to Davis and defensive line coach John Blake, who finished what Browning started.

Coaching does matter, but in more than just teaching technique and motivating. Browning and Blake helped Balmer grow as a young man, and that must happen along with all the lifting of weights and learning of techniques that allow a football player to do his job in the whirlwind of Saturday afternoons.

All of these gentlemen deserve a round of applause from Carolina fans, and then the coaches must hit the road again for more spring recruiting, hoping to add to what they've done so far to restock the UNC roster. They'll be looking for the players who will one day hear their name called early at the annual ritual called the NFL draft.