Sport: TIME's All-America: The Pick of the Pros

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AS Christmas vacation nears, graduating college seniors are busily interviewing for that perfect job with the perfect company. Yet for a small group of seniors, plans for the immediate future are based not on a personnel man's questions but on their own violent demonstrations. They are the college-football players who hope that they have shown enough size, speed, skill and strength to be selected by professional football scouts to play for pay.

Since Walter Camp popularized All-America college teams at the turn of the century, they have become as common as cheerleaders. Yet to most of the All-America athletes, the only thing that counts is the cool assessment by the pro scouts. Since 1958, TIME'S All-America has been based on reports from the scouts. Several Heisman Trophy winners have not made the team; a good many small-college players who never made anyone else's All-America have lived up to the scouts' estimates.

Herewith, TIME'S eleventh All-America—as picked by the head scouts of the National and American Football League teams.

OFFENSE

· QUARTERBACK: Terry Hanratty, Notre Dame, 6 ft. 1 in., 210 Ibs. "Hanratty has it all," says one scout. "He can throw long or short, soft or hard, on a high trajectory or on a line." Others praise his faking and peripheral vision. They say that he has "the natural cockiness of a good team leader." His faults—a penchant for "throwing into a crowd," and tipping off a pass play by dropping his right foot back just before the ball is centered—are correct able. His recent knee injury is a minus, but could work as a plus by exempting him from that other draft—military service. Always on the lookout for taller, stronger quarterbacks, some scouts prefer Greg Cook, Cincinnati, 6 ft. 4 in., 205 Ibs. He led the nation in yards gained by passing (3,272). The scouts like the way Cook's head sticks up like a periscope above the mauling linemen to survey his receivers downfield.

· RUNNING BACKS: O. J. Simpson, Southern Cal, 6 ft. 2 in., 210 Ibs.; and Paul Gipson, Houston, 6 ft., 205 Ibs. The scouts are calling 1968 the Year of the Running Back. Reason No. 1 is Heisman Trophy Winner Simpson, everybody's All-Everything. The pros liken his bulling power, his marvelous moves and his explosive speed to a cross between Jim Brown and Gale Sayers. That means, as one scout says, that "he is the greatest college runner in 10-20-50 years—unbelievable!" Noting that OJ. ran the ball an average of 35 times a game this season, the scouts talk in awed tones about his "incredible durability." Reason No. 2 for the Year of the Running Back is Gipson, who, in any normal season, would undoubtedly have won the same high praise now reserved for Simpson. As it is, he is rated as a strong, slashing runner and a pass receiver with more moves than a belly dancer.