Carlton Mitchell has tough love in his corner at NFL combine

Reporting from Indianapolis —  If South Florida receiver Carlton Mitchell happens to find the NFL too tough, he certainly can’t complain to his mother.

Angela Mitchell is part of the corner team for professional boxer AntonioTarver, among others.

“She’s a cut woman,” Mitchell said Saturday at the NFL scouting combine. “She started with a few amateur fights, and then has always been very close to Antonio Tarver. I don’t know exactly how it worked out, but all of a sudden she’s working his corner.

“She’s worked Roy Jones and other fights. It’s very exciting. I see her and she’s smiling, having a good time. I love it. She lives to brag about me. I brag about her.”

As for Mitchell, he couldn’t have been a contender.

“I have a weak nose,” he conceded. “My nose is very sensitive. I have a long reach, but playing basketball I’d get elbowed in my nose and start bleeding.”

Mr. Big

Illinois guard Jon Asamoah, who’s 6 feet 5 and 315 pounds, on his caloric intake: “We don’t have sweets around the house. I’m big, but it wasn’t because of sweets. I must just eat a lot.”

That’s cold

Mike Shanahan, new coach in Washington, said he might have wound up in Buffalo if not for, well, meteorological concerns.

“At the end of the day, it was not something that -- I want to put it in the right words: If I went to Buffalo to live there, from my family perspective, I think I’d be the only one that would go,” he said.

“My wife and kids wouldn’t go. Strictly to do with the weather, that’s it.”

So he opted for Washington, where . . . “we’ve had 40 inches in a few days.”

Dead ringers

Notre Dame receiver Golden Tate says he’s sort of a mix between Carolina’s Steve Smith and Minnesota’s Percy Harvin.

Oklahoma’s Dez Bryant likens his game to that of Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald.

Wayne State running back Joique Bell says he’s a little like late Hall of Famer Walter Payton -- at least in his passion for the game.

As for USC tight end Anthony McCoy?

“I bring a different thing to the game, I feel like I can do similar things other tight ends do like Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates and players like them. But I don’t like to compare myself to them; I’d like to be better than them.”

Better than Gonzalez and Gates?

Earth to Anthony . . .

Clean cut

Brandon Carter, a massive guard for Texas Tech, is known for his spiked Mohawk, cobweb scalp tattoos, and mascara he applies down his cheeks like war paint on game day.

He cleaned up for the combine, though, and the tattoos on his head are not as visible through his buzz cut. That hasn’t stopped teams from inquiring about his wild-man reputation.

“Every single team has asked about it,” said Carter, who’s 6-7, 350. “They always ask about it and they think I have a questionable character because of the image that they perceive from television.

“But I think once they get to know me they realize I’m not really a head case. It’s just whenever I’m on the field I’m intense, I’m very passionate. It just kind of psyched me out and I got pumped up. That’s what I think every player needs to do to play a football game -- not necessarily paint their face, but get psyched up somehow.”

As it happens, he grows out his hair each off-season.

“My mom likes it better,” he said, surprising no one.

Yell leader

Penn State quarterback DaryllClark has some great memories of being coached by living legend Joe Paterno.

Sort of.

“I always got yelled at by him, almost every single day,” Clark said. “He would come all the way over from the defensive end of the field just to yell at me for something small. He was always on me because he saw something in me.

“I just miss that squeaky voice and [him] running up and down the field, and talking to him after practice and things. That place is something I’ll never, ever forget.”

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