Dec. 3-9
Wow, what a week. Normally, we use this space to analyze an issue facing the scouting or player representation community, but this was not a normal seven days. We would argue that the period since last Friday, when we last published, may have been the most consequential in the business of college and pro football of 2022. Consider:
· The 2022-23 bowl schedule was announced: This one was pretty predictable, obviously. We now know the four teams in the CFP plus the other 78 teams who will play an extra game, and when.
· The Senior Bowl all but completed the first draft of its roster: Last year, about 140 players went to Mobile. We’re a little more than a week into December and about 75 percent of that number has already been announced. The Shrine Bowl isn’t far behind; we counted 79 invitees already announced. It’s been said before, but we’ve never seen this level of transparency among the premier all-star games (or any, for that matter).
· Twelve schools made changes at the top: We saw Tim Beck (Coastal Carolina), Deion Sanders (Colorado, duh), Jamey Chadwell (Liberty), Jeff Brohm (Louisville), Alex Golush (South Florida), G.J. Kinne (Texas St.),Barry Odom (UNLV) and Lance Taylor (Western Michigan) hired this week. On the other hand, we saw vacancies created, one way or another, at Kent State, North Texas and Purdue. Incidentally, it was a big week for DHR Global; the search firm helped place three of those coaches (Wilson, Odom and Taylor).
· The transfer portal welcomed 700 players: College free agency kicked into high gear as players across P5, G5 and other levels started seeking new addresses. Some of them were pretty big names.
· An NFL division leader dismissed its GM: Despite a three-game lead in the AFC South and three straight playoff berths, the Titans dismissed Jon Robinson this week. We asked a lot of people in the scouting community what they’d heard about this decision and didn’t get a lot of answers.
The busy week provided lots of answers, but also lots of questions. Here are some of ours:
· Will XFL teams dip into the portal?: The transfer portal presents another option for players actively considering their next step and who do not find what they’re looking for at the college level. They have several weeks to consider entering the XFL player pool in advance of the league’s supplemental draft, which will take place the first week of January.
· Could we see agents encourage draft prospects to consider the XFL?: Everyone wants to be on top, but no one wants to go first. Who will be the first contract advisor to send a developmental client to the XFL, passing up the normal pre-draft expenses and allowing his client to get paid for 10 weeks, then taking his chances in the draft with new film? The XFL 3.0 regular season ends in late April, whereas the USFL season will start in April and last into June.
· How will teams manage the all-star process?: For years, we saw all-star scheduling conflicts. Over the last decade, it was the East-West Shrine Bowl and NFLPA Collegiate Bowl scheduling against each other. Last year, it was the College Gridiron Showcase, Tropical Bowl and Hula Bowl all taking place during the same week. This year, conflicts will take place Jan. 8-14 (CGS and Hula Bowl); the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl and Shrine Bowl (Jan. 22-28); and the Shrine Bowl and Senior Bowl (Jan. 29-Feb. 4). The modern NFL team has a big room, with more than 20 evaluators per team, on average, per our latest study. Still, not all scouts are the same, and much of the overlap includes key interview and practice time.
We can only hope that the next seven days provide as many developments and items of interest. Not likely, but we’ll see. Here’s a look at what else we saw, heard, read and said about the business of college and pro football this week.
A big week for us, too: While everyone was busy around us, we had plenty going on, as well. Here are a few highlights.
· Zoom session: We hosted our fifth Rookie Agent Zoom Session on Wednesday. In it, ITL’s Neil Stratton spent an hour covering all the need-to-know information on how to make training decisions for NFL draft prospects. He followed up by welcoming representatives from five training facilities (XPE Sports, Bommarito Performance Systems, Triple F Performance, TEST Football Academy and X3 Performance) joined the call to discuss their services, offerings, pricing and other key details.
· Succeed in Football: Normally, our Rookie Agent Zooms are exclusive to ITL clients. However, it’s the season of giving, so we made the complete video available as part of our weekly blog. We even went a step further, providing our outline and notes associated with the opening hour. We hope it will be beneficial to first-year agents and others. Remember: if you want to be part of next week’s session (more on that later), you only have to subscribe to ITL.
· Signings Grid: Just a week after launching our popular feature for the ’23 draft class, we’re already approaching 300 signings. Granted, most are all-star invitations, but we also have a growing number of player-agent agreements and even training destinations.
· College Coaching Changes Grid: As we discussed earlier, there have been dozens of coaching changes recently. We’ve got all 22 schools listed, along with the previous coach and the new hire. However, we also list the search firm (if any) that each school used, as well as each agent’s representation, as well as the athletic director who made each hire.
· Reports aplenty: Former Titans executive Blake Beddingfield hasn’t had a lot of time for Christmas shopping. Last month, we experienced a 28 percent increase in reports over last year, when we wrote the most ever in the history of ITL. We’re expecting another busy month in December, but we have time for your requests, as well. Remember: $100 plus tax, and all we need is a name, school and position. Within 48 hours (usually sooner), we’ll put strengths and weaknesses plus a round projection in your inbox. Holler if you’d like to see a sample report.
Catching Up: Pete Cordelli, 69, spent the ’81-’82 term on the road for the Cowboys, then did a year on the pro side with the Browns in ’94. We caught up with him this week.
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Where are you living and what are you doing now? “We’re living in Nashville, Tenn. When my wife and I left Cleveland, we moved to Memphis after the ‘94 season. She’s from Memphis, and we lived there 25 yeas. My daughters went to school there. Then three years ago, we moved to Nashville. My youngest daughter and family are here, and another daughter is in Raleigh(, N.C.). Nashville has been great to us. Last year, I helped coach at Lipscomb Academy with Trent Dilfer, and the last four years, I’ve been a color analyst for ESPN+ games at Arkansas State, which has kept me in the game.”
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Do you miss the job? What do you miss most? “I miss the opportunity to go evaluate players and see how they progress. My dad was a high school coach for 45 years in Pennsylvania, and you have to be a teacher first. He had a ‘POD’ for everybody: a plan of development. He used to say, ‘in my math classes, I need a plan of development, and my football players are no different. There’s no such thing as a ready-made coach or a ready-made player, and if you don’t have a plan of development, you’ll get lost.’ The other thing, I got to watch other assistant coaches coach. You don’t get to do that very often. The head coach runs the program, but I got to see quarterback coaches coach the player on the field, the offensive line coach coach the line. You get to see who the great teachers are, and who develops their players, and develop the program, so to me it was a learning process. Every time I went into the school, I watched the player, but I also watched the coach. So I could tell the player was great because of his position coach. There’s a change in philosophy today that we get great recruiters, then we coach them. I recruited (former NFL offensive lineman) Ray Brown from Marion, Ark. Ray played 21 years in the NFL, and he never played above 285, and he always said, ‘it’s because of my fundamentals and techniques.’ If guys don’t have technique, they can’t do that. If you don’t have a plan of development for guys . . I miss it a lot because of that.”
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Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues? “I haven’t, over the years, because of movement and family stuff. Just haven’t kept up with many of those guys. (Former NFL executive) Vinny Cerrato was my (grad assistant) at Minnesota, then became my recruiting coordinator. (Former Falcons scout) Chris Vaszily is a very good friend. He grew up 10 miles from me. (Former NFL executive) Joe Mack and I played against each other in high school, and we beat his ass every year (laughs). I love Joe Mack. But no, not really. I see (former NFL executive) John Wooten every now and then at the coaches convention or at the Senior Bowl. What a great job Woot has done. But no, I got back into coaching after that. I was at Arkansas with Coach (Lou) Holtz, but the two years in scouting really helped me. It helped me with players, but I got to see some really good guys coach.”
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Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)? “I’ve been to Titans games a couple of times on weekends that we’re free, especially if I know somebody on the visiting team coming in. And then, a guy I coached at Notre Dame, Tony Eason, his son is Jacob, and when they came in town I watched them. I go to Vanderbilt games sometimes, and I go to Memphis, but I truly enjoy going to watch NFL games. When I was at Memphis, and I coached at a couple of high schools. We had (former Seahawks and Raiders linebacker) K.J. Wright (at Olive Branch HS), and I saw Seattle play Cleveland, but I’ll go to other games, sure. I love doing it.”
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Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game? “Oh yeah. Again, I go back to the high school guys I‘ve been around. They’re pretty much out of the game, but (Bucs senior offensive assistant) Rick Christophel, he was tight ends coach at Tampa. Pete Carroll and I were (grad assistants) together at Arkansas in ’77. There are a number of guys I enjoy watching their teams and how they play, so yeah, I just kinda put it on NFL Red Zone and flip around. I enjoy the heck out of it. Obviously, having coached QBs and receivers, that’s one area I really like to watch. To see the development of these QBs. I think there’s more that can be done to help in development of these QBs. I can remember (former Cowboys) Coach (Tom) Landry saying they’re not ready for 3-4 years, and that hasn’t changed. The college game is going more to hurry-up and the spread, and we’re seeing some of that in the NFL, but the speed of the players in the NFL compared to the speed of the players in college, you have to make that adjustment. The biggest thing I see right now, nobody talks about the difference in hash marks in all three levels of the game. In high school, the hash marks are 17 from each sideline, so you have 17 plus 17 plus 17, 53. The field is 53 and a third yards wide. With the ball on the right hash, and you’re asking the QB to throw a ‘go’ route down the left sideline, he doesn’t have the arm strength. In college, it’s 20 yards from each sideline, and the middle of the field is 11 yards wide. In the NFL, each hash is 23 yards from the sideline, hashes are 1 each, so 24 and 24 that’s 48. The middle of the field is five yards wide. I can stand on the right hash and, basically, the ball is always in the middle of the field. Why don’t we have the same hash marks for the young QBS as the college QBs? Physically, the eighth-, ninth- and tenth-grader isn’t developed like the NFL guy. In baseball, the national baseball federation has said from 15 years old on down, the pitchers mound is the same distance throughout high school, college, minors and their Major League career. I can get a better command of throwing the ball because I’ve been trained since I’ve been 15. . . As they go from college to the NFL, (young NFL QBs) have different angles with faster guys defending. If we want better QB play, we have to make the hash marks consistent as they develop.”
Review the latest from other former NFL scouts and executives by accessing our Catching Up archive here. Want to hear from a former scout, or know someone who may be interested in being interviewed? Let us know.
Next week: Everyone in the game is keeping up a frantic pace and we’re no different. Here’s what’s ahead next week.
· We’ll be back on Zoom Wednesday night. Like last week, we’ll start at 7:30 p.m. ET, and ITL’s Neil Stratton will spend an hour discussing the all-star invitation process, the difference between the games, what players can expect, which games have costs and which ones don’t, what to expect during the week before your client departs for his all-star destination and what to do if he doesn’t have a game. During the last hour, we’ll invite directors from the Big Six games to join us and give us last-minute updates on rosters, needs, game week details or anything else. As always: Zoom links will go out Wednesday afternoon, and the only cost to join us is membership in ITL.
· Our Succeed in Football post will probably be reflective of Wednesday night’s Zoom session, though we won’t be posting the video in its entirety, like we did this week, and we won’t be posting the outline. . . so we certainly hope you can join us. Again, all you have to do is subscribe to ITL.
· If you’re interested in the back and forth of signing season, you need to be reading Rep Rumblings. Whether they’re doing it as subscribers or if they’re “borrowing” someone else’s account, your competitors are.
· As you know, we’ll have daily updates on our Signings Grid. Follow along as the 2023 NFL Draft class takes shape.
· We’ll try again to plot out our game-by-game all-star rosters so readers can find out where the vacancies still lie, position by position. Given the progress of invitation acceptances, this should be pretty descriptive. We hope to roll it out early next week.
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