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College area scout Todd Brunner is back on the road for the next few weeks, attending various Pro Days of colleges in his area. Keep checking back for his most updated workout recap!**
Tuesday, March 20
I flew to Syracuse on Sunday and then made a 2-hour drive over to the University of Albany in New York for a Monday morning workout.
They had three guys there who I looked at during the season, an offensive linemen, defensive linemen and a corner, plus a handful of guys from other schools who showed up. There were five other NFL scouts there for the workout too.
With the weather and so much snow up here in Northern New York the workout took place inside. They ran on a track they have in their field house and then we did the positional work on the basketball court. The track is fine to run on but the basketball courts for the workout wasn't exactly ideal.
The DB from Albany ran very well. He's a former college baseball player who decided to play football in his final year of eligibility. His workout was just okay, again, the conditions weren't the best given those basketball courts.
On Monday night, I drove back to Syracuse and hooked up with a buddy of mine who I played with in college. I was his backup quarterback while we were in school. We were going to go to the Syracuse/NIT basketball game but we instead headed to a sports bar and watched it there.
Coach Greg Robinson spoke to us before the workout got going on Tuesday morning. Most schools will have their head coach talk to everyone. It's a chance to get some face time, and especially beneficial if there's been a changeover.
Right before the workout started, he mentioned he had an invite to go to the Syracuse Pro Day which was today.
We started off the work in the weight room where they had 13 Syracuse players and 10 other players from schools around the state of New York. We did heights, weights, vertical jump and bench press while in there and then drove over to the Carrier Dome for the 40s, shuttles and positional work.
The DB I mentioned from Albany was invited to this Pro Day and it was good to see him run again, this time on the field turf which is more accurate from a football standpoint than a time on a track. It was also good to compare him to Tanard Jackson, the corner from Syracuse and see how they stack up against each other.
A couple of guys from some of the small schools who may have been overlooked in the fall did a good enough job that I'll probably request a couple of tapes to see if they were as good as the numbers they put up, or if they just move around a lot better when they are in just in shorts.
After the Syracuse Pro Day came to a close, I flew over to Boston and am in a hotel typing up my numbers right now, and getting ready for another Pro Day on Wednesday at Boston College.
Thursday, March 22
I went over to Boston College on Wednesday morning where they had 32 people, ten of which were Boston College players, 22 who were from other schools. They've got a bubble over their stadium so it was indoors and we didn't have to contend with any bad weather. Also because of the organization and guidance of John Dorsey from Green Bay and Tom Gibbons from San Diego, the day went very smoothly and wrapped up much quicker than it could have given so many players to work out.
Basically we had two different lines for the 40, the BC kids ran on one and everyone else went on the other. We also ran two shuttle groups at once and then ran the position drills simultaneously. Boston College had several video cameras out there so we'll all get tapes and don't have to worry about missing anything.
The BC offensive linemen Jim Marten and Josh Beekman worked out and they both ran well, did position drills well and certainly have a career ahead of them in the NFL. The corner Larry Anam ran a 4.38 which was the fastest time I've seen this week at any of the Pro Days.
As expected, the UMASS guys all showed up and WR Brandon London ran well this go-around and did some of the stuff much better which was what I had hoped for. I felt with better weather conditions than we had last week at UMASS that he could perform better, and he proved me right.
I caught a flight from Boston to State College, Pennsylvania where Penn State is located late last night and basically headed straight to bed.
I got over to Penn State by 8 this morning.
There were a bunch of scouts and coaches at this workout, including a few heavy hitters in head coach Tom Coughlin and Kansas City's President Carl Peterson. Our Director of College Scouting Dave McCloughan was there, along with former defensive coordinator Billy Davis who is now with Arizona.
14 players worked out, but most everyone was here to see Levi Brown, Paul Poslunzky, Jay Alford and Tony Hunt for the most part. Levi Brown did only the position drill and he did very well. Paul ran his 40 but skipped the bench press which is what I had told him at the Combine.
McCloughan won his bet with our scout Trent Baalke in regards to LB Tim Shawn. He ran a faster time as Dave expected and so at some time Trent will have to pay up on that one.
McCloughan and I spent some time talking with Paul and then I headed to the airport to catch a flight home in time to coach my daughter's softball practice. It's been interesting lately because my son has a new infatuation with the phone so every two minutes he gets my wife's cell phone or home phone and calls me just to say hi. So, I think he'll be glad I'm home.
