Tom Petty was right: The waiting is the hardest part.

This weekend will be alternately thrilling and terrifying for hundreds of college football players, most of whom will be sitting and waiting at home for their name to be called by Roger Goodell or any one of the other lower-level NFL executives who handle the later rounds of the NFL Draft.

On one hand, there’s the excitement over the possibility of reaching the NFL. It’s the culmination of a lifelong dream. But at the same time, they don’t know where they’re going, they don’t know who they’ll be playing for, they don’t know who their teammates will be, they don’t know where they’ll be living and they don’t know how much money they’ll be making.

Other than that, no big deal. Right?

It’s the culmination of a crazy stretch for players, who have bounced from a bowl game to selecting an agent to the Senior Bowl to the NFL Scouting Combine to individual workouts to this weekend, all in less than four months.

“To be honest, it was pretty hectic,” said Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo of the pre-draft stretch, which culminated with him being taken 10th overall last year by New England.

“I think I went on 13 visits last year, and I got a little fat. But I was happy to get home and spend time with my family because I knew that after I got drafted, it was going to be really busy,” he said. “I was just blessed and fortunate to be able to come to a place such as New England and to go as high as I did.”

“It’s tough. It’s exciting, but it’s also nerve-wracking at times, obviously. They have all these projections and all these different things,” said running back Sammy Morris, who was taken in the fifth round of the 2000 draft by Buffalo. “You have agents attacking you all the time. There’s a lot on your plate at once. It happens relatively quickly. It’s four months, which seems like a long time, but you’re doing so much, and you keep going and going and going, and all of a sudden, it’s draft day.”

On draft day, a handful of likely top picks will head to New York to sit in the NFL green room -- and run the risk of humiliation, like Brady Quinn a few years ago. (Perhaps in an attempt to avoid the same fate, USC quarterback Mark Sanchez was invited to attend, but he declined. Check out the list of this year’s attendees here.)

The rest of the players will be sitting at home. They’ll likely be at the center of a draft day party, where the good news comes one of two ways: They’ll see their name pop up on screen, triggering a large celebration among family and friends. Or, they’ll get a call from the team shortly before the pick is announced -- something the Patriots have usually done the last few years.

“It happened so fast. It’s a grueling process that ends with a two-minute phone call,” Patriots quarterback Kevin O’Connell, who was a third-round pick last year, recently told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “All of a sudden, you have a new responsibility.”

The most important phone call of your professional life can come at any time.

“When I got called, I was actually just walking out of my bedroom. I went to go change. My parents had the air conditioning on and it was a little bit cold,” said New England defensive back Terrence Wheatley, who was a second-round pick of the Patriots last year. “I went to go grab a coat and that’s when the phone rang.

“I put the phone down and it showed up as an unknown call, so I thought, ‘Yeah that probably could be important,” so I picked it up, and lo and behold, it was the Patriots. I ran downstairs to tell everyone to keep quiet so I could hear. Then I had to run outside to talk on the phone because they were all yelling and screaming at that point. It was just very exciting.”

Christopher Price covers the Patriots for WEEI.com.