Draft Season | New York GiantsIt is now fish on.
The open draft season is here, or at least the college football season this year. Joining us to talk about it am more is our good friend, the executive director of the Senior Ball Jim Nagy, who's Inmobile before his travels beginning for college football season. Their watchless for twenty twenty four just came out. Jim, Thank you so much for being with me. How is your quote unquote offseason treated you?
Hey, John, it's good man. It's it's football's here. There's no uh, there's not much of an off season. You know, we kind of get about the same schedule you probably got. You know, you got I'm sure you wrap u Vota's up there, and uh, you know, get four or five weeks off and we're we're pretty similar. Month of July we have a Hall of Fame golf tournament that coach Daves came down to and then we we kind of went our own ways for about a month and then got back here late July and Craik back up.
Yeah, and by the way, your watch list is impressive. Congratulations on figuring out what team all these players are on and whether or not they're actually seniors.
Because it's impossible.
Okay, So a couple of things. One, we were at seven hundred and twenty players. I hated having that many. We're usually under five hundred. I like to keep it under five hundred. Again, I just don't like filling guys with a lot of false hope. Right, But this is a weird year with the COVID year. The reason the number is so big is the extra COVID year. A lot of guys have used that, so the class is bigger. That's one thing I think nil money is keeping guys in school, guys that which is a good thing, a really good thing, you know. I want to say we got some numbers from the league office over the summer. I think this thing with the juniors peaked in twenty nineteen.
There was over one hundred and.
Forty juniors came out in that draft, and then this past year I think it was somewhere down in the seventies, almost cut in half, which is great, man. You know, like a lot of these players were making decisions. They were making they were making decisions for their family, right, like for a family hardship situation that maybe wasn't the best football decision for them. So so now I mean that to me, that's the best thing that's come out of NIL is that these guys can take care of their families and really stay on track with football and make the right decisions when it comes to the football. But what that's done is create this huge, ridiculously big, seven hundred and twenty person watch list. And you're right, Like, the hardest part for our in house staff is, you know, we had all the scouting assistants, our DFO, like everyone was was googling and going to all the bios and making sure we're on the same page.
And we still put out the watch list.
And because of Portal, we probably had four or five schools reach out and say, hey, this guy's not even at our school anymore, because we like to give the sids kind of a heads up so they can make some graphics and help us promote the watching this thing. And yeah, we had about four or five guys that we were now somewhere else, so we had to clean that out before we put the list out the other day.
All right, so seven hundred and twenty guys, we have plenty of time years. Let's go player by player, Jim, I'm just kidding's kidding basics. Besides the size of the list, how does this group of players compare to some of your watch lists of years past since you've been with the Senior Bowl.
I will say, you know, everyone wants to talk about quarterbacks, so we can start there.
It is a much bigger list than normal.
On an average year, I would say that realistically there's there's probably ten to fifteen guys that if they played well, we'll be in consideration. I really think that number is closer to twenty five.
This year. We've got so many guys in new places, which is a weird.
Spot, you know, Like we like Brendan Armstrong a couple of years ago, Virginia two years ago. You know, last year, new new staff comes in. It kind of didn't go really well for anyone on the Virginia offense.
So now he's an NC State.
He's replacing Devin Leary who is now at Kentucky.
Right, we're all gonna be watching Notre Dame this weekend.
Then play Navy and you're gonna see Sam Hartman, who were all used to seeing in a wake Forest uniform in a Notre Dame uniform. So and then enough, I mean last year we invited bo Nicks and Keten Slovas bo Nicks at Oregon, who is going back to school right now. He's our top graded quarterback. But we invited Keiden Slovas from Pitt and he went back, but he didn't go back to Pitt. He went back to BYU. So a lot of unknowns at quarterback. I would say positions of strength offensive line, particularly tackle, which is good news to its music for the years about everyone in the NFL, because I don't care who you are outside of maybe like the Eagles and a couple other teams. I mean, everyone's looking for offensive line dep and and the interior defensive line is a really strong group this year, at least at least compared to the last couple of years that DT, the one techniques, the three techniques.
It looks like it's shaping up to be a really good senior class.
Yeah, and that's frankly been I think a shallow class in the last few drafts. So I think it's time, yes, that some of those guys have kind of come along. You know, every year you have position groups where they're frankly guys just come out as underclassmen. More often as you take a look at this list, are any positions maybe a little bit more bare because maybe we've had a lot of underclassmen come out early. I know cornerbacks is usually one of those groups.
Yeah, corners is one of those groups, Sean, But I I'm just getting into that group myself right now, Like our staff has grated all those guys, and I'm trying to watch everyone fifth round and higher on our board, and I work from quarterback across our board, which goes from offense to defense, and I end up in the back end. So I just got to the secondary and I kind of like this cornerback group. I really think there's some good players in there. And we saw some guys last year kind of rise up out of our game Josh Brentz from Kansas State and up going pretty early in the second round to the Colts. I think we're gonna see We're gonna see a good corner class. I would say, you know, I think the last couple off the ball linebacker groups has been thin, and it looks kind of thin again this year.
That's been a hard position for us to find. And then running back.
You know, I think there's some unproven running backs that I think they have talent, but now they're going to be in more prominent roles. I know George's got a couple couple guys on this year's list, and they were behind Kenny McIntosh.
Who played in our game last year. So there's some guys that have something to prove.
But running back in corner are usually are two spots where the juniors.
It's a pretty junior heavy heavy position groups.
At Ohio State is a couple of running backs too that have dealt with injuries and stuff like that. Well, see they can kind of put things together. And Georgia stacking talent, really having guys behind really good players that they're.
Ready to go. I can't believe it.
Shocker, right, yeah, I know, I know you put kind of round grades on these guys. What does it look like in terms of number of potential first rounders? I know, Jared versus one guy that jumps out to me who probably would have been a top fifteen pick last year, right if you would have came out, and he's someone that's that that I know was around.
If you don't want to do names, you don't have to.
But how many guys do you see on your list that either now have a first round grade. Do you think could rise by the end of the year to be potential first round picks.
Yeah, I mean I would say I would say quarterback bow Knicks, who might have a chance, you know, he he he and Hennon Hooker were the two guys at quarterback for US last year that when we started this process last year on the watch list, they were we had him in the fourth round, and they in bo and Hendon were the two guys that ended up in Day two for US.
Everyone else we hate, we still had Day three grades on So so maybe Bo.
I don't know if there's a running back that's a senior running back that's going to get into the first round. I think at wide receiver again, maybe Roe Madoonzi at Washington. You know, there's a couple offensive linemen in that group, defensive Jared Vers on the edge for sure. Maybe a couple of the interior defensive linemen might get there, and uh and maybe a couple of these corners, so you know, senior wise, like I saw Dan Brugler put out his top fifty this year, and I saw Matt Miller put out for ESPN put out his mock first round. I think I think Matt had four or five seniors in his mock first round. Dane had a handful of seniors in that top fifty, which which I like, John like because when when the media gets on these guys' first round picks, when the agents try to convince them not to come come to Mobile.
So I do.
I think there's a handful I think right now, like if I had to ballpark it, maybe eight or nine guys overall across.
The board that could end up being first round picks.
You know, you mentioned the quarterbacks briefly before. I think Dane had twenty to twenty five senior quarterbacks, Like as potential drafted players, Is this the deepest group you've ever seen from pure depth?
Yeah, And again a lot of those guys that a lot of them are unproven or that they were proven at other places and now they're new places, and so if they were really proven, why would they be at another place?
You know, So there's there's a lot of uncertainty.
I would say, you know, Bo Nixus is pretty solidified as probably a Day two player. I think Jayden Daniels from LSU for me, was the most improved quarterback in college football last year. From beginning to end. I think everyone's on Joe Milton right now at Tennessee because he's got some Anthony Richardson to him in terms of the high end fiscal traits. I mean, he basically did exactly what Anthony Richardson did a year ago at the Manning camp.
This year.
He launched the ball like eighty five yards and then he did a backflip. So I don't know if he was taking that script exactly from Anthony Richardson, but he basically.
Did the same exact thing.
So we'll see where Joe Milton goes and kind of his first years as being the guy at Tennessee. And that's different than maybe coming in and playing in the bowl game like he did and playing really well against Clemson. And I think he had one start at the end of the year too. But you know, he and I talked about it at the man In camp this summer. This is a new year. It's your team, so you know people are going to be gunning for you. They have the book on you now, they've been studying you in the offseason. So big year for Joe Milton. But yeah, it's it's it's definitely the deepest class it's gonna be a hard class to cut down to six players.
I know that for sure, that's gonna be that's not gonna be easy.
For FCS fans out their Division two, Division three fans. Gym, you do a great job of making spots in your game available to guys that are not FBS players. Uh, is that a deep group this year? Are there a lot of guys who are some of the guys that that your scouts have really liked that maybe fans, if they watch some of these lower conferences or lower divisions, they might want to keep an eye on.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, I think the nil's done, you know, done some really good things. Like we talked about helping some players out, I think, uh, I think with the portal in NIL, it's it's pulled all those small school players up, whether that's the Group of five or all the way up to Power five. This year's watch list, it was really hard, you know, to get a lot of small school players on there. Quite frankly, I mean we're usually when on our roster every year, at least still over the past five years since we got year, I mean, we're usually in that eight to twelve range of FCS d two players in the game and and man right now, if we had to pick a roster, maybe three or four guys. So we're really it's quickly cutting into into that group. So hopefully some of those guys that stayed at that level raise up. I would say this like, there's a big tackle at Yale. I know Kieran's his first name. I'm really I'm a stickler on getting people's names right. So the pronunciation. I do not want to butcher this young man's name. I should have brought the tag down from our board and just.
Showing you the name. You know.
Then there there's there's an ed rusher at William and Mary who we've got a pretty high grade on right now as well. But both over all that numbers down unfortunately, because I love the small school aspect of our game.
Yeah, I call a couple of games every year for the Northeast Conference up here, and you know, this year I talked to all the coaches and media. They're like, yeah, I lost twelve guys at to the transfer for eight starters, and it's just the same exact thing you get from every single coach.
It's happening all over the place. It's too bad.
Yeah, and you hate it for those coaches because they were the ones they identified the guy at a high school, right, They're the ones that put in the time to develop them in his position, and then you get him to the point where he could be a draft pick and help your school, you know, help the profile of your recruiting and whatnot.
And now you're losing him new big school. So man, I hate it for those coaches.
And we're just talking about transfers.
What are some of those Division one, you know, power conference schools, Jim that have really you think struck gold with the transfer porter this year that maybe fans are not aware of how talented some of these rosters have become.
Would I would have to start with Florida State. John Mike Norvel has done an excellent job in the portal. They got a guy like Jaheem Bell from South Carolina.
He's kind of.
A pass catching f tight end, you know, size wise, like we've got him on the board right now at full back, like you could maybe do some fullback stuff. He's been a running back at South Carolina, so he's got that body type. Florida State has done a really nice job. Michigan's done a nice job. They actually convinced a couple offensive linemen to come there, even though they are He had that, even though they were already loaded on the offensive line. Those are a couple, But there's some good players, like when during our Texas swing last week, you know, Houston got an off the ball linebacker from Oklahoma that they're going to play. You know, is more of an edge player there. He's a Houston native, so he was. He was a good player at Oklahoma. So I think everyone's doing it. But if you had to, if I had to like pinpoint a couple of schools, I'd probably say Florida State and Michigan right now.
Yeah, let let's stick down there in the ACC. Then Florida State fourteen players on your watch, as Miami has twelve. Then I was surprised cleansing only six, which is generally I think a little number for that program.
Right Yeah, And I probably should have mentioned the Canes. Mario Christovaald did a nice job really really getting their offensive line in shape.
Right.
He got a center from Matt Lee from UCF who's a draftable player. He got jv And Cohen from Alabama who's a draftable guard. So they did some good work on that offensive line because they're going to have to protect Silo Van Dyk quarterback. Yeah, the six sounds low for Clemson for sure. You know, I think a lot of their a lot of their best young talent is their young younger classes, So that seems like a low number. And you have Florida State's pretty loaded, not just fourteen names. I think if you went across the board at the top of our board by grade, they might have the most highest graded players, you know when it all Florida State, Michigan. Really those two, those two schools in terms of our highest graded like top three rounds, those two schools might have the most.
Yeah, and the Big ten is loaded too. You mentioned Michigan eighteen players. I know you said they're loaded with offensive linemen, right.
They are.
You know, Jim Harbaugh made a comment that that he feels like they could have twenty players drafted.
And I've been asked about that because that's my school.
I went to school at Michigan, and so I've done some some local Michigan media stuff and they've asked me is that realistic? And it sounds crazy, right, because I think Ohio State held the record forever.
It was fourteen.
It was an Ohio State team back when I worked for the Patriots, and I want to say like four to oh five. I think they were at fourteen and that number stood for a long long time and then and then I think Georgia beat that a couple of years ago with fifteen. So it sounds nuts that Jim saying they could have twenty. But when you really break it down, they've got seven offensive a lineman on the watch list, They've got, you know, two running backs, Blake Corum Donovan Edwards. They've got a transfer tight end from Indiana. They've got two wideouts Cornelis Johnson and Roman Wilson. They've got the quarterback JJ McCarthy. He comes out. And so I think I just named about fourteen fifteen guys and that's not even including the defense. So who knows, they might maybe they could get there. That's certainly Michigan's had a really good roster the last two years they've made the College Football Playoff. This might be this might be coach harbos best team.
Yeah, and Ohio State is no slouch either, and they're going to try to knock Michigan off.
Twelve players in your watch list. And then two other Big ten schools.
I guess when he used to call them to the Big twin now right, Ohio State with twelve, Penn State with thirteen, Illinois with eleven. So the Big Ten has plenty of talent again this year, don't they.
Yeah, no doubt. Ohio State's always going to be loaded.
They they do a great job in recruiting and developing their guys, and they've they've got a lot of high end guys too. That's another school. We've got a bunch of Ohio State guys near the top of the board. Penn State always does a great job. We've had a lot of players in the game from Penn State and and really what Brett Bilham has done at Illinois that I'm glad you mentioned them, because you know we had we had three other dbs committed last year, Sidney Brown and Kwon Martin ended up ended up here in the game and they went on Day two.
We had we.
Had our guy here in Genus it's ironic as Jersey sitting right here. We had we had Witherspoon coming to the game last year, and then our god Dann Jeremiah as soon as he puts Witherspoon as his fifth best player.
In the game back in January.
Then I magically get a call from an agent that Witherspoon's not going to play in the game.
So but no, Brett's done an awesome job.
They got a couple defensive linemen this year that are that are up there pretty high on our board, and then some other guys, a couple offensive linemen. So they're good in the trenches, as you would expect from a Brett Bielam a coach team. But yeah, Big ten. I mean it's gonna be SEC Big ten every year in the draft. I mean, those two conferences kind of lead the way, so it would make sense they have the most players on our watch list.
All right, So let's jug down to the SEC. Jim will hit a couple of teams here, Tennessee nineteen, All miss twenty, LSU sixteen leading the way, and I mean, no surprise, the conference is stacked, But those three teams really stood out to me.
Yeah, All miss on the most overall. So again I'm not saying Lane's team's gonna win the SEC, but they they that number was so big because they had a lot of guys come in from other places and talking to their staff, they feel good about some of those guys. So it was, uh, you know, we're just gonna keep staying in the boat with some of those guys watching their you know, a lot of a lot of group of five guys. They pulled a lot from the group of five, so we just want to kind of wait it out and see what those guys looked like. They're in Oxford and and LSU I think is loaded. I know they didn't win the media tally for for the preseason SEC media on the eastern side that you know, the Crimson tide still on that boat.
If and I did have a vote, I went to SEC media days. I didn't bothe though.
I just told a group of Alabama fans today at a luncheon that my pick would have been LSU. I think they're I don't think they're Joe Burrows LSU team in terms of like high end draftable talent, but they got a lot of good players coming back, and because of Jayden Daniels, I think that's where the difference for me is with with LSU and Alabama. Alabama's right now still auditioning three guys for their starting quarterback job and l s U s Jaden Daniels and Trench. So to me, that's to me, that's the difference. I think LSU is gonna be a really good football team.
And then I was I was surprised to see Auburn with fourteen kid.
Yeah, and again they hit the portal hard.
You freeze hit the portal hard, so kind of the same rationale as we were with old miss.
I told that room, that room was kind of split today.
Alabama Auburn that I spoke at and I got asked how Auburn was going to be.
I have no clue.
I know Peyton Thorne, the quarterback from Michigan State, is certainly I don't think he's gonna lose them football games. He's a really solid player, He's played a lot. But they've got four new pieces on the offensive line. They went on the portal, hit the portal hard there. They've got a bunch of new names at wide receiver. They've got a kid Hooks from Jackson State who we kind of like, kind of a bigger receiver.
But a lot of unknowns.
The one thing I do know about Auburn is they could have three of their four dvs here in mobile. Both outside corners and their nickel are really good players. So they're they're good on the back end, where where Auburn's may be a little different.
This year.
They don't have any you know, big name guys up front on the defensive line, and that's that's where Auburn's kind of made their hay over the years. We had Derek Hole in the game last year. Who went I think Derek went like thirty six, thirty seven to the Seahawks.
I forget where he went, but but early in the second round.
I don't know where they're gonna get their pass rush from, but there they are gonna be able to cover people on the planes.
This year mentioned you took a trip through Texas the Longhorns. They are a talented team, I know, the quarterback room especially, but they've I mean, they're really going to try to compete in that conference and I think they got a shot at it.
I mean, yeah, they they kind of had like a they were hosting like an NIL night for all their big donors inside the stadium. Uh the night I was there for the practice and they did a lot of a lot of scrimmage type stuff, and man, you're right about those quarterbacks that there can't be a better room in America than than what Sarks got there in Austin, and they do. They've got some. This This team is where I think Sarks thought he hoped it would be, you know, when he took the job three years ago. They've got They've got two defensive tackles Sweat and Collins, who are are really good players up near the top of their position groups for our game. They've got a middle linebacker forward, They've got five dbs. They got a corner a Nickel Baron who's a really good player.
So yeah, and they're loaded at wide receiver.
Now they've got a transfer from Georgia who's a younger guy, not a Senior Bowl guy, but Jordan Whittington and wide receiver.
They are going to be able to throw the ball all over the place.
They lost Jon Robinson, they lost Roshan Johnson, who I think is going to be a good player for the Bears this year.
But I don't know if they're gonna have to run it.
I think they're gonna be able to chuck it all over the place and score a bunch of points.
We haven't mentioned Georgia.
Do they have a bunch of seniors that were hiding behind guys that came out to the pros that are I'm going to show up and be like, oh wow, these guys would have been the best player at that position on like ninety eight percent of the teams in college football.
They do, they do. I mentioned it. They've got a couple of running backs. They were behind Kenny McIntosh. They have a quarterback Carson Beck who, yeah, he's only played in garbage time the last two years behind Stetson Bennett. But we watched twenty one and twenty two, and the garbage time in twenty two is a lot better than it wasn't twenty one. So if he makes that jump, you know, he could he could be a draftable player, and he was a really highly thought off kid coming out of high school.
They've got there. They're good on the offensive line.
Now, they've got the center, Van Pran is going to be an NFL starter. Your Truss, one of their guards is going to be an NFL starter. They've got a young tackle. I mean, they're they're good.
Man. There. They've been again on defense.
You could go to that side of the ball and they've had guys just kind of chomping at the bit to get on the field. So so they're they're just reloading. They're not they're not rebuilding, they're just reloading in Athens.
All right, real quick. Two teams in the packed engine that that jumped out of me. Oregon with seventeen players and then Lincoln Riley at USC with fourteen.
Yeah, Lincoln's done a great job built, like really building that thing. And it helps when you have the Heighstman Trophy winner quarterback. But I'll say he's gonna get great protection. I think they have three or four guys I don't watch this on the offensive line, three or four draftable guys up front, so they will be able to protect Caleb Williams and he'll be able to do his thing. And then Oregon they have some really good players like Jordan Birch and the transfer portal from South Carolina is a really tools e you know, great testing defensive lineman. So yeah, I think I think Dan Lanning is ready to with bow Nicks. Right, you know, you got the quarterback, and I think they've plugged in some some pieces. I think that D line is gonna be good out West. I think they're gonna have a hard time blocking blocking oreganst d line and then it really Washington's kind of loaded to with Michael Pennix at quarterback. They got two wideouts like I mentioned Roma Doonzy, they got McMillan.
They're at wide receiver as well. Uh, they got some guys on the offensive line.
One of the third left tackles one of the best offensive linemen this year's class senior wise, Uh Fatanu Troy Fatanhu.
So they're good, man.
Those those the sadly enough, like ironic as it is like the PEC twelves falling apart right now, and.
Some of these teams are gonna be They're gonna there. It's gonna be some good football played out West this year.
Now, Jim I when asked about a couple of guys on the Giants here before we say goodbye, they have a couple of Senior Bowl players or a few that they drafted this year. John Michael Schmidz obviously and Eric Gray, two of the guys that attended the game. What's your Giant fans expect from those guys? And in your one where you can be swimming early, but I know you're big fans of the players.
Yeah, I think John Michael is he's a to come in and play at a pretty good level right away.
Again, you're plugging him in at center, and there's a lot on a center.
The nice thing is he's got a super smart quarterback in Daniel Jones, who knows what he's doing when he's not gonna have to carry the load by himself.
But I think John Michael's used to being a.
Center, right I I I heard I heard the Giants offensive line coach talk about that a little bit. They've been they've been playing guys there that are good players and have done a decent job in there for him, but they haven't had like a guy that's a center, right And that's what John Michael is. So I think he'll play at a pretty good level as a rookie center. And H So that's a good one. And then Eric Gray, you know, I think that H. I think they I know, they were really excited to get him where they got him whatever that was, fifth or sixth round. Fifth, Yeah, yeah, I know, you know, uh, you know, Joe Shane and I were going back and forth a little bit about that on draft, you know, during the draft, and I know he was he was pumped. They were kind of staring him in the face like they didn't think they would be. So, you know, going back and watching some of these offensive linemen from from Oklahoma over the summer, man, you kind of forget how good some of these guys were. Like I'm watching him, like how did Eric I'm watching the table, like how did Eric Gray last in the fifth round? And I think that just it's it. It validates what's going on at the position right now. You guys lived it over the summer with Saquon, and you know, the franchise came to a point where you know, I'm glad there was a resolution of that thing.
But man, guys that Eric Gray shouldn't last of the fifth round.
Like comparatively at other positions, he's a way better player as a running back than other guys that their positions were in the fifth round, if that, If that makes any sense.
So he'll be a good change of pace back. Man. The one thing he can do is make people miss and uh and do it really well.
So in the past game of the run game, get the ball in his hands, he can create and uh.
So he's a really he's a really cool complimentary back.
He's not the power guy that Saquan is, you know, but in terms of having a shifty guy that can make people miss and and and get him in space. Uh, And I know Dave's can do that. You know, he's going to figure out a way to use his playmakers. He's kind of a for for I know everyone's getting ready to their fantasy drafts. Gray is kind of a cool like late round at the end of the draft to like get him on your roster and see what we'll see what coach today Ball can do with.
Him one hundred percent. And I thought I read this correct me if I'm wrong. Did you guys extend the Senior Bowl invite to Trey Hawkins the corner Artile dominion last year? Or was that bad information I found on the old Internet?
Now that was bad information. No, we did.
We did not actually saw Trey play. ODU came in here last year and played South Alabama like late the year, like Thanksgiving weekend, and we had Nick xel Devery one of their offensive linemen. So I went to the game to meet Nick, and uh, I remember their coaching staff it was really talking up Trey and uh, They're like, you know, he's probably not a.
Senior Bowl guy.
It might not be a seniorable guy, but but we think he's got a chance to get drafted.
So is is he making noise up there? Is he doing a good job right now?
Jim?
It looks like when the Giants are a nickel, he's gonna be the starting outside corner with Deontay Banks and they're gonna slide Dory Jackson into the slot. I mean the traits have shown, and Wink is kind of asking him to do what his traits allow him to do. Just play, you know, kind of banna man in side technique and use your length and look, we'll see week one against Brandon Cooks and CD Lamb and Michael Gallup. But in camp so far, he's done a pretty good job.
Well that that's that's great to hear. Man. I love to hear those stories. I let you know. I love admitting when we were when we were, when we didn't.
Get a player. Right, if he ends up being a really good player, then we missed on him. But I think that speaks to winks coaching, right. I mean, ask a guy to do that's good coaching. Ask you got to do what he can do to play to his strengths and play him outside and then move a door inside.
That's just that's just good coaching.
All right. Final question Jim before we say goodbye.
How has your process change at all or improved or different as you've kind of been in this game for a few years now, how you've built your staff, how you go around your scouting process? Uh, kind of how has it gone and what might be new or different this year or what have you learned along the way.
Yeah, we haven't changed the process too much because you know, we we really you know, we got the tape. That was the big thing we got here. There wasn't even tape that the league wasn't even hearing All Star Games tape at that point, so we had to we had to convince the league to get us the tape so we could watch it.
So that was the first step of the process.
And then and then it was, you know, getting some real scouts on board here, some guys with NFL experience really excited about this year's staff. We've got eleven former NFL guys with over two hundred years of experience, not not to exclude anyone, but like Scott mccleuan, who is a gym of the forty nine Ers and and and had some great drafts there and the Washington football team. Scott's going to be doing a lot of work for US. Mark Gorsak, whoever, anyone that watches that the combine knows Mark Gorsak because he's the guy that starts him on the forty yard line for the forty yard dash. The former Steelers scouts so gorses with us. You know, Walter Julip is back for year two with US. Walter is a you know, a thirty seven year NFL veterans scout. He scouted for every coach in Cowboys history. So we've got We've got some really good guys man really well connected guys. And uh, you know, we can't be at a school every day, we don't have that kind of budget. So to be at the games on saturdays, be connected and having scouts quite frankly that when they call college coaches are going to pick up the phone, you know, and other in other scouts and just and using those connections, using using our relationships the best we can. So yeah, we believe in our process. And again the part of the big part of our process is having good people.
No question about it.
Go to Senior Bowl dot com slash watchless to check out the watch us over seven hundred players. It's fantastic And Jim, you've did a great job of making the Senior Bowl something people are not paying attention to more than just you know, two weeks in January, right, So tell the folks everything you guys are doing down there, anything they should know about as the college football season and the draft season really starts to kick off here.
Well, John, thanks for saying that.
I will say this, if you're not following us on Twitter and you still want to, like, if you don't want the draft to jump, you're like, like, get on you late in January. If you want to follow this thing and be ahead of the curve a little bit on your friends, follow us on Twitter. My thing is Jim Naggie Underscore sp So what'll what we'll do is, you know, I just taught it reference. Our scouting staff will be a you know, twelve thirteen fourteen games every single Saturday. In what our scouts do, they're down on the field during pregame and they're getting right up in the pregame warm up. So when the dvs are pedling and you know, breaking on balls, like we are right up there when the offensive linemen are down there getting in their pass sets and going through their passet stuff, when the receivers are running routes.
We try to bring the fans down to the.
Field with us because a huge part of the evaluation process is the body type and what these guys look.
Like, and you can't see that really on TV.
So we try to get our guys right up in that stuff, and then they send the videos to me from the field. They shoot it right to me, and then I'll post it from my handle and we're posting about thirty to forty players every Saturday, so and I'll put a little scouting report with, you know, for each guy and kind of what we feel about those guys. And really, John, one of the most rewarding things over the last five years is that I've had feedback from GMS that you know what Joe Shane's life is like.
I mean, you see him on the road, you travel with him. He doesn't have a ton of time to like sit and watch college tape during the fall.
So I've had GMS tell me Jim every Saturday night, part of what we do after we have team meeting or team snack or whatever. I get back to the room, like, I'll go to your Twitter feed and I'll scroll and I feel like that's at least I'm getting some work on the college.
So I've done that year.
And I can't tell you how much that means, because you know, we're really trying to do this for the thirty two teams and the scouting departments that I mean to have a GM say, have GM say that they do that. That means a ton. So if you're a fan, if you love following the draft year round, you know, give us a follow. And uh so when we get to Senior Bowl time, come by time, you'll have a you'll have a huge jump start on on on on this year's class.
And are you guys going to have the NFL staffs again? The two full ones? Are you going to have the mix and mash again?
So that was decided this summer.
Every you know, our game and all the other all star games that the league is affiliated.
With are going to have the mixed staffs.
Okay, I think it worked really good. By the way, did you like it?
I did you know?
I had some apprehension. I let the league office know that I'm not Gonna. I wasn't real happy with it because you know, for said many three years we had the full staffs and it was kind of kind of part of what the Senior Bowl was all about, right, So I wasn't I wasn't, you know, thrilled with it. But once we got the groups down here, it was really a cool experience. And and again selfishly for me, I mean I loved connecting with a lot of these young coaches.
And to see those guys grow in new roles. It was really cool.
And I think we had like six guys within about a month of the Senior Bowl like get jobs, either promotions at their current place or new promotions elsewhere. So I think the league saw that and they're like, wow, this is this is a good model.
So that's what we're going to have.
And again, now that we've been through it, it was really cool. Really our apprehension, not to like go off on too much of a tangent, was when we had the full staffs, they brought everybody, They brought the whole football operation. So the pr guys came, the trainers came, the equipment came, and now we we had to figure out how to how to do that on our own right, So we we had the equipment staffs from Georgia and LSU come in. We partner with the Andrews Institute, doctor James Andrews, who operates on all these NFL players.
They're right and we're lucky.
They're in our backyard in Pensacola, so they came in to do the training. So we went through it last year. We figured it out and it ended up being a really cool thing.
Well, good to hear, Jim.
Enjoy the season, enjoy your travels, and we'll talk to you again as we get a little bit closer to when people start focusing on the draft.
Man, have fun, all.
Right to good luck this year man, Good luck to you.
Appreciate it.
Jim Naggy, Executive director of the Senior Bowl, Thanks for joining us on draft season.
Tony Pauline rejoins us next week. We'll see you then.
