In case you missed it, the official NFL Scouting Combine invitation list came out earlier this week. Considered the premier event for draft-ready prospects to showcase their skills prior to the April’s big day, the combine is far from the end all, be all of determining whether a player will boom or bust on the next level. The inevitable Wes Welker example has been echoed a thousand times over, and just as Welker went on to NFL stardom after not receiving a combine invite, we can bet this year’s list of combine “snubs” holds several future Pro Bowlers. Here are some notable offensive skill position players from around the country who didn’t get an invitation.
QB: Zach Collaros, Cincinnati- To a certain extent I can understand how Collaros gets overlooked. The Big East has been mediocre for most of his career, and his senior year was broken up due to injury. Still, it’s worth pointing out that Collaros was once the poster-boy for a dual-threat Big East quarterback, electrifying the nation as a sophomore in 2009 when he led the Bearcats to five consecutive Big East wins. A key part in helping Brian Kelley’s team get to the Sugar Bowl that season, his size (6-foot-ish) might not be ideal, but when healthy he has the kind of leadership ability and versatile athleticism to make you wonder why an NFL team wouldn’t consider him.
QB- Dan Persa, Northwestern- Wait a second. Is it just me, or were we talking about this guy as a potential Heisman darkhorse a year ago? It’s no secret Persa’ brilliant junior season was spoiled by an Achilles injury which left him in a limbo-like relationship with starting status in 2011, but he still managed to hit over 74% of his passes, and actually became the NCAA’s career leader in completion percentage. While his mobility was extremely limited last season, he’s shown proved adept at moving in the pocket, and despite standing only slightly over 6-foot, he’s got the kind of pinpoint accuracy that make playing at the next level entirely possible.
RB: Bobby Rainey, Western Kentucky- This is the guy already making his name out to be “Mr Overlooked” for the 2012 draft. Passed up by the Senior Bowl selection committee as well, Rainey was the most instrumental player in the Hilltoppers’ unprecedented rise from the ranks of college football’s worst teams in 2011. His 5-foot-7 frame obviously hurts him, but he’s rumored to have sub 4.4 speed. Toughness? The guy only led the country in rushing attempts each of the last two years, and despite playing through coaching changes, poor offensive lines, and sometime nonexistent quarterback play, Rainey still managed 4,542 yards in his college career.
RB: Lance Dunbar, North Texas- Call it the curse of playing for not just a non-BCS school, but a bad non-BCS school.Dunbar was a three time First Team All Sunbelt pick and is just one of six FBS players in history with over 4000 career rushing yards and 1000 receiving yards. True, his 5-foot-8 size is far from ideal, but last I checked plenty of NFL backs weren’t built in the Adrian Peterson mold. Not sure he gets drafted, but he’s a guy who can definitely become a contributor on the right NFL team.
WR: Cole Beasley, SMU- People are going to compare this guy to Wes Welker because of his size, skin color, and the kind of offense he played in, but the simple fact is that Beasley is a receiver in every sense of the word. He’s got great footwork and feel for the dimensions of the field, and once more, he displays a level of toughness and concentration in traffic that are needed on the next level. Despite missing time due to injury as a senior, he stepped up for 79 catches in 2011, and should make a great slot NFL receiver.
WR: Jeremy Ebert, Northwestern- How a guy who caught 137 balls for over 200 yards and scored 19 touchdowns over the last two years gets left off the combine invite list is beyond me. Like Beasley, it probably doesn’t help that he’s a moderately sized white guy in the slot mold, but to say Ebert lacks ideal speed down the field is to blatantly ignore his highlight film. His numbers would have been even better had Dan Persa been injury free in 2011, but as it stands now he’s going to make one team (the Patriots, perhaps?) happy with a steal in the draft.
TE: Brian Linthicum, Michigan State- Forget for a second that at 6-foot-5, 245-pounds he has ideal size for coming off the line, but Linthicum is coming off a season in which he caught 31 balls for 364 yards. He has averaged over 10 yards a reception in a pro-style, run heavy Big Ten offense each of the past three years, and is a guy who could immediately step in and play as a second tight end on the NFL level.
TE: George Bryan, NC State- Bryan is not going to win any awards for his speed, but at 6-foot-5, 265 he has the perfect size of an NFL tight end, and the resume to boot. As a rare four-year contributor who managed to catch 126 passes in his career, he begs an invitation to the NFL combine if simply to see whether or not his much harped on “lack of athleticism” is enough to detract from his toughness as a receiver and soft hands.











Riley and Me
I can distinctly remember the first time I saw Riley Nelson play football. It was 2006, and if my below-grade-level match skills serve me right, I was a senior in high school (this, by the way, is the point where you whistle and say, ‘damn son, you’re old.’) Spending a productive afternoon in the living room of my parents’ house in Ellicott City, Maryland, I ran across a MASN-2 feed from some God-forsaken location of a university even I had never really heard of. Utah State was playing some school that day — the exact WAC opponent, I can’t recall — and stopping briefly between the anxious move to the next station and game, I caught a glimpse of a dynamic athlete.
Riley Nelson spun out of a tackle, hit the ground (but didn’t) and sprinted to the endzone. The subsequent touchdown which wasn’t (he was ruled down by contact) was the kind of thing an impressionable college football fan and teenager keeps in the back of his mind. Call it a “player cognition theory” if you will, and even extend it to the university. A few minutes later I turned the channel, but the name “Riley Nelson” and “Utah State” suddenly had meaning.
Flash forward five years later. I’m a half decade removed from that floor, yet I’m sitting here all the same. An out-of-work college graduate – ironically enough, from Utah State — I’m watching the same exact player, who, as if laughing in the face of all conception of four-year eligibility, is still playing college football. Riley Nelson and me (yes, and me, because those are how the words form in my mind) now find each other in a curious position. He’s no longer at Utah State and has seemingly burned bridges with many in Logan, yet he’s moved on. I was no longer in Ellicott City, burned some bridges, went to Logan and loved it, but also had to move on. But now I’m back here sitting on my butt, and he’s leading the school he felt compelled to transfer to for reasons all his own.
Riley wouldn’t remember the one conversation we had in our lives. It was on the phone in 2008, and the last thing he was going to do was to open up for some college paper writer looking for a sensational quote about betraying a university and community. I remember the conversation though, and I remember how stalwart he was in defending the course he’d taken in life. He really felt God had led him away from Logan, just as — oh, the irony again — I had felt God led me to Logan. I walked away from that conversation with a respect for him, a respect, I want to add, that continued even as his once-bright career looked to have passed him by with the triumphant arrival and sensational play of Jake Heaps at the close of the 2010 season.
Considering this, perhaps my fellow Utah State graduates will forgive me when I admit I was rooting Nelson while he was leading the Cougars on their game-winning drive in yesterday’s 24-21 Armed Forces Bowl win. I won’t deny a burst of sudden emotion when he brilliantly faked a spike at the goal-line only to connect with Cody Hoffman for a touchdown, and I won’t pretend like the victory didn’t mean something to me as both an individual and a fan.
You can talk all you want about loyalty. You can talk all you want about throwing away the love shown to you by an entire community, or wasting your potential on a circuitous route to only minor glory. But there’s another way to look at it, and that’s through the eyes of the person making the decisions that other label as such.Riley and me, me and Riley, we’re not so different, I think. And yesterday, sitting on my parents’ floor watching him on a football field all these years later from when I first saw him, I can’t help but think that while I’m really in the same place, I too, have found a hint of redemption.
And that’s a story worth writing about.
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Posted in College Football, Thoughts on Life
Tagged college football, football, life commentary, Thoughts on life