College area scout Todd Brunner checks in again with his weekly blog. Find out the latest schools and players he's been scouting, as well as his commentary on cellphone etiquette in this week's blog.
On Monday I drove over to Brown University and being an East Coast guy, I really enjoy going to Ivy League schools. These guys are not on scholarships for football, so they are obviously smart and every now and then there are guys there who are NFL caliber players.
Steve DeOssie played in the league and his son is a linebacker at Brown, so he's got pedigree and he has some ability. He'll definitely be somewhere next year.
From there I drove over to Connecticut and went to UConn to check out at a handful of guys. They've got a very nice brand new facility there which will help them in the Big East in terms of recruiting.
There are about five prospects there and the one who really stands out is the fullback. He is the team leader, a guy the head coach says he wishes he could clone.
Next up, I made the trek up to the University of New Hampshire to watch the number one team in Division IAA.
The drive up there was outstanding because this part of year in New England is the time of fall foliage. People go on vacation just to come up here to look at that and you can understand why when you are making the drive through that area.
One of the receivers on New Hampshire's team is one touchdown reception away from breaking Jerry Rice's all-time career touchdown catches for a Division I-AA football player. There's a reason they're the number one team. They've got several NFL caliber players and they are coached very, very well.
From New Hampshire, I went to another Ivy League school in Harvard. I took at peek at a top running back in the Ivy League who also has a chance of breaking Ed Marinaro's rushing record. He's definitely an NFL prospect and should be on the sidelines somewhere next year.
This week I checked in with another one of our scouts in Justin Chabot. I wanted to see what he knew about that Harvard running back because the kid originally started at Northwestern and transferred. Chabot was there as a coach at that time so he knew the kid, and I wanted to get some background information on him.
Since I was going to the Boston College/Maine game on Saturday, I went to the hotel where Maine was staying on Friday so I could visit with some of their coaches about the prospects they have there. After visiting with the coaches I went down and saw some friends at Cape Cod. I just enjoyed the scenery and visiting with my friends.
The game was okay. The outcome was as expected with BC beating Maine. Maine fought and played hard but in the end, BC overmatched them. The food at BC's pressbox is outstanding. They've got great clam chowder. All of the scouts that go in there are big fans of the chowder, and that's what everyone looks forward to after being down on the field pregame. I flew home that night and celebrated my birthday with my family on Sunday, and then left my house at 3:30 this morning to fly back to Boston.
I covered close to 500 miles last week and have just gone over the 100 mark in terms of reports.
Annoying thing of the week - people who talk on cell phones in public very loud and let everyone else know what they are talking about and who they are talking to. I was sitting next to this guy at the hotel in Boston who was being obnoxious so I pretended to call the President of the United States and talked really loud about it and acted as if I was great friends with the President, just to let him know how annoying it was and that people really don't care who he knows or who he doesn't, or at least I don't.
I'll stay here in Boston tonight after watching game tape at Boston college and will check in again next week to fill you on the rest of this week's travels…
