August 31, 2025 • 24 mins
Panini Senior Bowl Executive Director Drew Fabianich joins Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks to share his journey from longtime Cowboys scout to his new role leading the Senior Bowl. He shares his concern with the state of college football, details the 2026 Senior Bowl Top 300 List and breaks down what it takes to thrive as a college GM in today’s game. Plus, Drew gives a behind-the-scenes look at preparing for the 2026 Senior Bowl and navigating a full college football season.
Check out the 2026 Senior Bowl Top 300 List here
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
And now move the sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome to move to six guys. I am Bucky Brooks
at my coach. Daniel Jeremiah would join me later as
we have a great conversation with Drew Fabianch. He is
the Benini Senior bal executive director. We're going to talk
to him about one of the premier college football All
Star games and the new stuff that he's doing since
taken over. How they gonna get down and so, without
(00:30):
further ado, let's listen to the conversation DJ and I
had with Drew.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Well, I'm still gonna call him coach Buck. You know,
when somebody coaches you, you don't you don't ever stop
calling him coach. So I don't care if I'm seventy
years old, He's still going to be coach. Fabians to me, coach,
how the heck are you doing?
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Im good?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It always freaks me out because I haven't coached in
twenty five years now, so he gets strange and people
still do call me coach, and they still have players
to call me coach.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Still. I was like, come on, I am't coaching that
we don't call me coaching.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
It Yeah, for those for those a little bit behind
the scenes. So when you're when you're having guests on
a lot of times people within an organization and where
coach is working as the senior executive director of the
Peninny super Bowl, They're going to send over, Hey, like,
what kind of questions are you going to ask? Or
you know, what are the topics that you might hit?
And that's just the way it always goes when you
have a guest on. And I said that the number
one topic I wanted to hit was who's his favorite
(01:20):
quarterback that he's ever college level? And but I don't
want to ask the question because I.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Don't want to answer college level.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah no, I shoot, I mean I could go back
to high school. I don't think I would have cracked
the top ten even on high school or any level
that you've ever coached at. So I'm going to take
a pass on that question. But Coach, give everybody an idea.
You've signed on to this new role. But for those
that aren't familiar with your path, just kind of give
them the cliff notes version of your football journey.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Well, I'll kind of make it real, convinsed. I coached
for seventeen years, coached every position but offensive line, tight ends,
and running backs, ordinated both sides of the football. I
was the youngest defensive corterner in Division one history. When
I got the job back like in ninety with an
eight or ninety or whatever it was, I was twenty
(02:11):
nine years old, you know. Then moved on to personnel
with the Cowboys for eighteen years fourteen to that, where
I served as you know, the national scout for them.
Then I went to Auburn as the general manager for football,
and then I went to West Virginia as the West
Virginia I mean there's the general man football there too.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So a lot of years that's a full slate Buck, that.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Is a that is a full slate coach one before
we even get into the Senior Bowl stuff. I got
to ask you this because I'm so curious how tough
was it for you to make the transition from coaching
to being a scout and evaluated because I just remember
so many people talked about a coaches or coaches and
scouts are scout, But it's hard to kind of live
in both worlds.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I don't I don't disagree with you, Bucky, and I
swear probably my first three years, I had to stop
coaching the tape, you know, and you know he should
be doing this, and you know, and he should be
doing that, you know, and you know, I'm not coaching
him anymore. So then I had to really stop, you know,
taking those I took the coaching lens off, and I
started looking at the trades, looking at you know, how
(03:18):
he performed the production and everything else. And it took
me a good two three years to stop myself from
doing that. But now, the one thing that did help
me is I knew the reasons why they were doing
what they were doing. A lot of times, there's a
lot of scouts out there that don't even truly have
the acuum of knowing the difference between coverages. You know,
(03:40):
they don't know why certain protections are wrong. So it
helped me by saying, well, you know, hey, he's going
to get a deep comeback running in bucket corner when
they're playing quarters. It's just going to happen, especially when
number two is running a vertical, you know. I mean
I knew that some guys didn't, So that transition was hard,
but smooth and in certain ways, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I want to kind of go chronologically here and we'll
get to I want to really dig into some of
the GM work in how college football has changed in
your experience there. But with the Dallas Cowboys, Look, there's
a lot of intrigue. I'm not going to ask you about
Michael Parsons, but there's a lot of intrigue which is
kind of how the organization is run or how it
functions the personnel department. I think, you know, you look
through your time there and shoot, this organization's drafted really,
(04:27):
really well. You know, for a lot of the lot
of the bullets that come their way. If you just
look at how they've done in the draft process, they've
drafted just about as well as anybody. So it just
for those listening and watching coach a peak behind the curtain,
how does how does that machine operate there in Dallas.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Well, and I'll bounce back with you.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
You are correct, from the time I was there at
two thousand and three to twenty two, we had what
we had sixty seven prom Bowl appearances on players that
we have drafted, you know, and that was second to
one team in the league. You know, the it doesn't
work any different than anywhere else. You know, the day
to day you know, management, you know goes you know
(05:07):
to Roll McLay and then below that, you know, you
have your pro director and your college director, just like
every other team, and then it filters down to the
national scouts on you know, each side of the country
or split in the North and South have a split number. However,
the same number of area scouts probably is a lot
of teams.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
The difference is that when you know, real decisions have
to be made, Jerry makes them and he is in
Him and Steven are in on every single personnel meeting
that we have in April. They watch the players, they
they talk about the players. They almost you know, evaluate
with us in a way.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
And it's a collaborative you know, with the scouts and
how we graded players. It was never like.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I could never push a guy up, you know, too far,
because it was really a collaborative grade and we kind.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Of stuck with that model almost throughout the entire process.
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
But like I said, when it comes down to, you know,
the final call, it's still Jared's and he knows Paul
and he actually spends time watching the tape with everybody.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Well, well one's Garry's it's Jerry until Johnny Manziel's there.
Then then Jerry he acts to the room, right, But
Johnny Manziel it wasn't Jerry, because then Jerry had to
acquiesce a little bit to that.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
He did. But but you know what's funny is see
the room was so far against it that that I
think he was like, Okay, I'm a businessman too, and
if I've got this many opinions that say no, then
i think I've got a kind of bend to that,
you know, because he did. He did love Johnny, and
Johnny was a phenomenal college player, but everybody said, you know,
(06:47):
his game, you know, may not he may not be
able to function quite like that. And you know, the
pro system, you know, he's gonna change protections, he's going
to have to do things that he's never ever done before.
And you know, and again that offense was suited specifically
for him, and I don't think the pro system was
ever going.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
To do that for him.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So but yeah, that was the only real difference. Yeah,
but that shows that he's a great listener too.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Now I got to ask you this just because he's in
the headlines and even though it's still a Dallas question.
I just got to talk about pass rushers and Michael Parsons,
and I would say the rise of the versatile defender
when it comes to being a passwords because we've seen
more linebackers that play linebacker on first two downs and
then go to pass rusher. How difficult is it to
(07:33):
have a multi dimensional player at the second level who
can play a traditional linebacker spot and then go and
be a pass rusher. Because I think he's a bit
of a unicorn that we don't see very often in
our league.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I don't disagree. And you know, the skill set showed
up at his birthday, and you know, I went up
there and I was watching the D line drills and
he jumped in there with Uway and Brett Price right
behind me, and I kind of slammed my head around
because I knew real well, I go, I go, wait
a minute, I said, where did that come from? He said,
he played defensive end in high school and he looked
(08:08):
better in the pass rush jills than New waited. And
for this one, when you're watching the tape coming out
of college, I mean, he was okay, you know, off
the ball, he wasn't great in coverage. He was an
incredible blitzer and that's where it all started. It was like, okay,
wait a minute, now, you know, we can bring him inside,
we can get some mismatches inside. But then all of
(08:29):
a sudden, hey, let's slide him out. We're seeing to
defeat some tackles with Link and his athleticism and yeah
he could you know, and again like you guys both know,
if you lack Link, you better be special. You know,
as far as being flexible and being athletic and being
twitchy and being able to change directions because you know,
those offensive tackles. The link just takes over a lot
(08:51):
of dudes. That's why he is a unicorn, because they
didn't get hands on sometimes. You know, when you watch
him in this rush, which is amazing to.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Me, it's not fair. He's been and hopefully everything as
a record in this Hopefully everything gets worked out there.
The next part of your journey, coach, I want to
dig into is is you know, I don't know, gosh,
you couldn't have been too far behind in years of
when the first GM was named. I think might have
been Austin Thomas at LSU might have been the first
one who was named officially got the title of GM
(09:21):
of a college program. But you've done it in a
couple of different spots at Auburn and at West Virginia,
And I mean, even I guess I'll just start here,
how quickly did it change? Like was it changing? We've
seen college football change so drastically. I mean, just give
us an example of just getting into that role and
how you observe the changes that were taking place?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Well, you know, and again I went in with I
was lucky enough to be around head coaches that knew me,
and they were like, Okay, let's structure this however you want.
And I structured it just like a prosystem. There was
no doubt me that the do you to be split up?
And you know, the transfer portal like treated just like
the pro side in the NFL, and the high school
(10:03):
side was just like the college side.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
The thing was is a lot of places were how
would I put this, they're more concentrating. There's still concentrating
on the high school piece of it. And you had
to make a decision with how much money you had
because they say cap it's not cap, it's a budget,
And how much you have in a budget to actually
be able to afford people. Because here's the thing, the
(10:29):
transfer portal gets really really expensive, especially in May, because
desperation sets off and a lot of teams go, oh, gosh,
we don't have any more tackles, or we don't we
need a guy really really bad.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Well, then they're going over pay for one.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So I had to structure where I wanted sixty percent
of the roster to be high school kids because I
couldn't afford to jump into the portal and overspend for
lesser talent. So I was hoping to hold those guys
as long as I could and pay those guys when
they progressed with their performance to just try to keep
them around. Now, don't get me wrong, if somebody came
(11:05):
knocking and you know, it goes from three hundred to
five hundred thousand dollars, I couldn't compete.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
So it was like, I'm going to lose them anyway.
You know.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
The only thing I tried to do is just concentrate
on development piece and trying to help them become NFL players.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
And you know, and it helped you.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
In the way, but it changes like every five minutes
because you know, it was so uncovered and the NCAA
wasn't stepping in on anything that was getting done, and
I don't think they're going to. And just like the
Deloitte piece where they say that, you know, anything over
they get six hundred dollars that you know they have
(11:42):
to check on market value. Well wait till somebody says
they say no to that for a sixty thousand dollars
deal in Chicago or you know, a fifty thousand dollars
deal in la And the player goes, okay, well, we're
just consumed because they can't they don't understand market value.
Somebody's willing to pay me that, why can't I get it?
(12:02):
So it's so ungoverned. That's the biggest problem. And I
think that you're going to have to get to a
point where you're going to have to have a commissioner,
you're going to have to have to your contracts, you're
going to have to make them employees, you're going to
have to have a CBA.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
And it's I think it's going to become a minor
league for the NFL. I really do.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And because right now it's a mess, and there's a
lot of lies out there. There's you know, hey, this
quarterback's making eight million dollars.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
No, he's not. He's not. You know, he's that.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
They're maybe talking about an eight million dollar deal for
six years, you know, or something like that. But you know,
the agents are putting out there because you guys know
you dealt with agents in the league. They're going to
put out the big numbers so they get bigger clients,
you know, and they're going to beat their chest. And
I got the richest quarterback contract of all time, if
here we go. I mean, so I went round and
(12:58):
round and round, and I didn't mean to. But that's
what managing being a gym in college is like. If
you have to handle everything. And I had to handle everything,
even even the advanced work. I did the advance work too,
because you know, I picked the mismatches out, you know,
for the coaches, because coaches don't watch player player, they
(13:21):
watched scheme and scheme. Well, I'm like, okay, you know,
you can pick on this Mike linebacker because he's not
very good. Put him in space. You can make sure
that you're attacking this you know, this guy, we call
him Fish. I found him Fish, so, you know, and
then overseeing the high school recruiting piece, you know, overseeing
the transfer portal, handle on the contracts, you know, actually
(13:42):
negotiating contracts. It's it's hard, it's really hard. So, like
I said, I bounced around. I apologize, but.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
That's I want everybody to get a feel for it.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
That's my day. Trust me. I used to say, hey,
just wake around a little bit. It's going to change.
Just waiting.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I mean, somebody's going to be doing something different, and
somebody's gonna be trying to escape the system. Somebody's going
to be trying to do something different and it's just
not going to get called out. It's not going to
get penalized. I mean, you know, heck, I mean, what
was the last one? It was like, I think West
Virginia suit the suit to get to get eligible. It
wasn't that that's not eligible. I mean, so is it
(14:23):
still student athletes or is it not? And I'm not
taking a West Virginia. I'm just saying, you know, guess what,
anytime every time you turn around, well here's okay, pobbying.
When did junior college become you know, not eligible or
not from part of the clock, right, because when you
when you and I play, I mean all of us.
It's ten semesters, right, Yeah, that was it yet ten semesters.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
You have five or four.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Now it's different.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And I think, and I may be totally off, but
I think that there's going to be another lawsuit about
almost an anti trust because how can you make a
student leap, I mean player lead that's making money, that's
making eleven How can you prevent them from doing that?
You know, because I'll betch you those you guys are
(15:08):
going to be playing seven or eight years now, I
mean college now, because they're.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Gonna make more money there than they're ever gonna make
in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
You guys know that there's seven draft picks out there
that will never make that kind of money and they
may not make a team, but they can stick around
three more years and make.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Jure, I I got to ask you this because if
you're scouting and you go from looking at NFL players
and college players, how different is your eye for high
school talent?
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Now?
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Like, how big of a transition was that to go
from looking at guys that are in our thirties to
now we're talking about sixteen seventeen year olds and trying
to project out how those guys are going to evolve
and eventually develop to be played.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Go back farther, Buffy, it's worse than that. You're evaluating
ninth graders. I mean, and I swear to you, it
was really really hard for me because I'd see that
a kid, you know, from the class of twenty eight
just got offered by UNC and I'm going, like, they
just offered a guy that's six foot colleens one hundred
and thirty five pounds. I couldn't do it, you know.
(16:18):
And I still had to see some maturation. I still
had to see some you know, almost you know what we.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Call big boy ball.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I still got to see some big boy ball before
I actually like, I want to pull the trigger on guys.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
And I still wanted to see some size.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I wanted to see him in person, you know, because
you guys know, I mean, you can just check out
the body frame and sometimes you go, you know, hey,
he's going to be a real big player. He's gonna
be a real big boy or a spoof. He may
not get much bigger. I mean that those hips aren't wide,
the shoulders aren't wide, and you know, parents aren't very
big was a chance he's not going to get him bigger,
(16:51):
you know, so I was still looking for the traits.
But again I'm also looking at the competition. Is if
he in Georgia and he's starting as a ninth grader
against Buford and he's got production, I am a little
bit more thrilled, you know, to offer a kid like that.
But if he's not and it's just on you know,
(17:14):
hype from on three or twenty four to seven or whatever,
I'm not and I'm not dogging out those services, but
you know, I still have to see it with my eyes.
But and it was just so hard for me when
the measurables which is not there. Yeah, it was just hard.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Now this has been This has been great, coach. I
hate the fact I've chewed up the shot clock so
much on stuff outside of your current gig. But I've
got to get I've got to get you before I
know we got wrapped here soon. But I I'm excited
for you in this new opportunity. We were talking before
you came on about how much you're enjoying this role
at the Panini Senior Ball. So just give us, give
us a little thirty thousand foot view of where things
(17:53):
stand right now with the with the leagues, with the
sports premiere All Star Game, and what you're excited about
going forward.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well, the one thing is we put out the Senior
Bowl top three hundred. I didn't like the idea of
eight hundred and fifty or nine hundred players out there
because I wanted to produce it down and make this
an honor as just even put them on the top
three hundred, and again, I got a great feedback from
a lot of coaches, a lot of liaisons that said,
(18:19):
you know, hey, we're for over debt because you know,
this is a prestigious, you know bowl game. I mean,
it's the premier bowl game, all star game of ball,
and it always have been, always willy. So that's the
one thing I started with. And now they can play
their way into an invite if they're outside of the
three hundred. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying out
of these three hundred, I'm gonna take one hundred and
forty out of that, you know, three hundred that's gonna
(18:40):
be a roster. Now, there's tons of time for guys
to actually you know, play their way into the game.
With production and everything else, the other piece of it is,
you know that we're kicking off a lot of different things.
And I changed the schedule of the entire week, and
I think you'll all be for real because there will
be only one night of interviews on Monday evening, and
(19:02):
the interviews will be in the morning on Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday, and every single evening.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Will be free.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
That's great, that's great. It's good for the restaurants in town.
I know they're on things.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Here's here's here's why I mean, and please put this
out there. This used to and you guys know this.
This used to be the NFL coach's kind of unofficial convention.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, until until.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
The interviews got so structured and everything else that they
started getting caught up by the personal departments.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Going, well, if you're there, you're going to be in
here interviewing all night long.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And well, they came down here to network, they came
down here looking for a different job. They came down
here if they're fired, they're looking for a job. Well,
it was the great time for that because when they
go to the compline, most of the jobs are already filed.
So I'm trying to get these guys excited about coming
down here and want the coaches to know part of this,
I mean just part of it was for them. This
was primarily about the player, because you guys have been
(19:54):
through the interviews just like I had, And when I.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Went through them, I was beat down. I guess what,
I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
What they felt after a full day of practice and
everything else, and then all of a sudden, you go
and eat and you're stuck in there from seven o'clock
to ten o'clock every time. So I really started about
the player. But now it's kind of morphed into guess
what personal people are going to be free.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Coaches are going to start coming back down here. They're
going to be free.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
You know, the players and the agents can get together
at night, because they were complaining about they could never
see their clients at night, you know, because we rush
them off the field to get them to eat and
get them to meetings.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Well they were like, well when can we what we
meet with them? Well you couldn't.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
So, like I said, I'm trying to make it better
for everybody. But it started with the player, and that's
where they'll always kind of end and start with me.
But I think I'm kind of hitting a lot of
other you know areas by just doing this.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Did you tell me? Tell us right now? What is
your staff like, this is the kickoff of Fisier, kickoff
to college football season. What do you what are your
staff doing this week and throughout the season.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Well, I'm not going out this week.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I'll be going out probably like every other week or
maybe every third week.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
And and you know I can get more done, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
On multi view on you two TV and watch sixteen
games and you know, check the flashes and then go
back to maca watch the tape. Well, we have various
scouts that are posted all over the country and they
go to games that they deem important for them because
they're grading tape. Now, we just gave them their lists,
so they're cross checking us, and then we're cross checking them,
(21:26):
you know, throughout the fall, and it becomes a collaborative,
just like just like the league does. Jim, you know,
Jim Nagge did a great job here, and you know
he structured this the right way. So I'm not changing
any of the structure. It's built like an NFL and
ball club because we got two in house scouting assistants
we've got you know, Jack Gilmore's my you know, Ops
(21:47):
got heat, great state by grade tape, the scouting assistants,
great tape. And then we got ten other guys out
on the road that are grading tape too, and you know,
again it's it's a well organized machine. And I'm happy
beat that I walked into something where when I walked
in the door, there was already two NIF players on
the and that was in I think it was late
(22:07):
Nay when I first interviewed and I saw the boy,
so there ahead of schedule.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
They really are. So that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
And you know, getting the invites won't go out until
about middle November.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Guys can play into this band.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I keep saying that, you know, I don't think it's
just because the three hundreds after there be you know,
just dealing off for those three hundred players.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
So that's what's going on. So it's gonna be busy, fault.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, I'm excited for I'm excited for this new role.
I'm excited to get out there. It won't be too
long before we'll be out there for this ball game.
And the meantime, coach, now that you're you're settled in there,
just go across the street. Let's go get a little
Mediterranean sandwich shop. It's a good spot. We can go
hit panini, pizza, whatever you want, whatever you want for lunch.
It's it's on us. Get go enjoy yourself.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Hey, I'm going to trust me. I never got that.
I never got any opportunities to down here. You know that.
It was always like, hey, we're going to check flight.
Hey we're going. Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
We're gonna have plenty of time now. But hey, look
forward to seeing you guys down here. And you know,
anytime you need me, please feel free.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
We will reach out. Coach. Enjoy enjoy the kick off
the college football. It's great to catch up with you. You
didn't have to answer it because I already knew I
was your favorite quarterback that you that's right, that's right, baby,
all right, appreciate you, coach, have a great one.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
See you guys.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
So as I told you, it was a great conversation.
Drew is doing fantastic stuff. A unique journey, going from
being a coach, DJ's coach to being a scout to
now taken over the Senior Bowl. After a short stint
as a general manager at Auburn and then at West Virginia.
Fantastic insight. We're looking forward to having him back on
as we get closer to having the paths of the draft,
(23:49):
which includes a stop in Mobile, Alabama for the Senior Bowl.
But until next time, I'm Bucky Brooks. That was Dame Jeremiah.
This is move the sticks. We'll talk to you next time.
At the cost contain inste
And now move the sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome to move to six guys. I am Bucky Brooks
at my coach. Daniel Jeremiah would join me later as
we have a great conversation with Drew Fabianch. He is
the Benini Senior bal executive director. We're going to talk
to him about one of the premier college football All
Star games and the new stuff that he's doing since
taken over. How they gonna get down and so, without
(00:30):
further ado, let's listen to the conversation DJ and I
had with Drew.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Well, I'm still gonna call him coach Buck. You know,
when somebody coaches you, you don't you don't ever stop
calling him coach. So I don't care if I'm seventy
years old, He's still going to be coach. Fabians to me, coach,
how the heck are you doing?
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Im good?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It always freaks me out because I haven't coached in
twenty five years now, so he gets strange and people
still do call me coach, and they still have players
to call me coach.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Still. I was like, come on, I am't coaching that
we don't call me coaching.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
It Yeah, for those for those a little bit behind
the scenes. So when you're when you're having guests on
a lot of times people within an organization and where
coach is working as the senior executive director of the
Peninny super Bowl, They're going to send over, Hey, like,
what kind of questions are you going to ask? Or
you know, what are the topics that you might hit?
And that's just the way it always goes when you
have a guest on. And I said that the number
one topic I wanted to hit was who's his favorite
(01:20):
quarterback that he's ever college level? And but I don't
want to ask the question because I.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Don't want to answer college level.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah no, I shoot, I mean I could go back
to high school. I don't think I would have cracked
the top ten even on high school or any level
that you've ever coached at. So I'm going to take
a pass on that question. But Coach, give everybody an idea.
You've signed on to this new role. But for those
that aren't familiar with your path, just kind of give
them the cliff notes version of your football journey.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Well, I'll kind of make it real, convinsed. I coached
for seventeen years, coached every position but offensive line, tight ends,
and running backs, ordinated both sides of the football. I
was the youngest defensive corterner in Division one history. When
I got the job back like in ninety with an
eight or ninety or whatever it was, I was twenty
(02:11):
nine years old, you know. Then moved on to personnel
with the Cowboys for eighteen years fourteen to that, where
I served as you know, the national scout for them.
Then I went to Auburn as the general manager for football,
and then I went to West Virginia as the West
Virginia I mean there's the general man football there too.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So a lot of years that's a full slate Buck, that.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Is a that is a full slate coach one before
we even get into the Senior Bowl stuff. I got
to ask you this because I'm so curious how tough
was it for you to make the transition from coaching
to being a scout and evaluated because I just remember
so many people talked about a coaches or coaches and
scouts are scout, But it's hard to kind of live
in both worlds.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I don't I don't disagree with you, Bucky, and I
swear probably my first three years, I had to stop
coaching the tape, you know, and you know he should
be doing this, and you know, and he should be
doing that, you know, and you know, I'm not coaching
him anymore. So then I had to really stop, you know,
taking those I took the coaching lens off, and I
started looking at the trades, looking at you know, how
(03:18):
he performed the production and everything else. And it took
me a good two three years to stop myself from
doing that. But now, the one thing that did help
me is I knew the reasons why they were doing
what they were doing. A lot of times, there's a
lot of scouts out there that don't even truly have
the acuum of knowing the difference between coverages. You know,
(03:40):
they don't know why certain protections are wrong. So it
helped me by saying, well, you know, hey, he's going
to get a deep comeback running in bucket corner when
they're playing quarters. It's just going to happen, especially when
number two is running a vertical, you know. I mean
I knew that some guys didn't, So that transition was hard,
but smooth and in certain ways, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I want to kind of go chronologically here and we'll
get to I want to really dig into some of
the GM work in how college football has changed in
your experience there. But with the Dallas Cowboys, Look, there's
a lot of intrigue. I'm not going to ask you about
Michael Parsons, but there's a lot of intrigue which is
kind of how the organization is run or how it
functions the personnel department. I think, you know, you look
through your time there and shoot, this organization's drafted really,
(04:27):
really well. You know, for a lot of the lot
of the bullets that come their way. If you just
look at how they've done in the draft process, they've
drafted just about as well as anybody. So it just
for those listening and watching coach a peak behind the curtain,
how does how does that machine operate there in Dallas.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Well, and I'll bounce back with you.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
You are correct, from the time I was there at
two thousand and three to twenty two, we had what
we had sixty seven prom Bowl appearances on players that
we have drafted, you know, and that was second to
one team in the league. You know, the it doesn't
work any different than anywhere else. You know, the day
to day you know, management, you know goes you know
(05:07):
to Roll McLay and then below that, you know, you
have your pro director and your college director, just like
every other team, and then it filters down to the
national scouts on you know, each side of the country
or split in the North and South have a split number. However,
the same number of area scouts probably is a lot
of teams.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
The difference is that when you know, real decisions have
to be made, Jerry makes them and he is in
Him and Steven are in on every single personnel meeting
that we have in April. They watch the players, they
they talk about the players. They almost you know, evaluate
with us in a way.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
And it's a collaborative you know, with the scouts and
how we graded players. It was never like.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I could never push a guy up, you know, too far,
because it was really a collaborative grade and we kind.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Of stuck with that model almost throughout the entire process.
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
But like I said, when it comes down to, you know,
the final call, it's still Jared's and he knows Paul
and he actually spends time watching the tape with everybody.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Well, well one's Garry's it's Jerry until Johnny Manziel's there.
Then then Jerry he acts to the room, right, But
Johnny Manziel it wasn't Jerry, because then Jerry had to
acquiesce a little bit to that.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
He did. But but you know what's funny is see
the room was so far against it that that I
think he was like, Okay, I'm a businessman too, and
if I've got this many opinions that say no, then
i think I've got a kind of bend to that,
you know, because he did. He did love Johnny, and
Johnny was a phenomenal college player, but everybody said, you know,
(06:47):
his game, you know, may not he may not be
able to function quite like that. And you know, the
pro system, you know, he's gonna change protections, he's going
to have to do things that he's never ever done before.
And you know, and again that offense was suited specifically
for him, and I don't think the pro system was
ever going.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
To do that for him.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So but yeah, that was the only real difference. Yeah,
but that shows that he's a great listener too.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Now I got to ask you this just because he's in
the headlines and even though it's still a Dallas question.
I just got to talk about pass rushers and Michael Parsons,
and I would say the rise of the versatile defender
when it comes to being a passwords because we've seen
more linebackers that play linebacker on first two downs and
then go to pass rusher. How difficult is it to
(07:33):
have a multi dimensional player at the second level who
can play a traditional linebacker spot and then go and
be a pass rusher. Because I think he's a bit
of a unicorn that we don't see very often in
our league.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I don't disagree. And you know, the skill set showed
up at his birthday, and you know, I went up
there and I was watching the D line drills and
he jumped in there with Uway and Brett Price right
behind me, and I kind of slammed my head around
because I knew real well, I go, I go, wait
a minute, I said, where did that come from? He said,
he played defensive end in high school and he looked
(08:08):
better in the pass rush jills than New waited. And
for this one, when you're watching the tape coming out
of college, I mean, he was okay, you know, off
the ball, he wasn't great in coverage. He was an
incredible blitzer and that's where it all started. It was like, okay,
wait a minute, now, you know, we can bring him inside,
we can get some mismatches inside. But then all of
(08:29):
a sudden, hey, let's slide him out. We're seeing to
defeat some tackles with Link and his athleticism and yeah
he could you know, and again like you guys both know,
if you lack Link, you better be special. You know,
as far as being flexible and being athletic and being
twitchy and being able to change directions because you know,
those offensive tackles. The link just takes over a lot
(08:51):
of dudes. That's why he is a unicorn, because they
didn't get hands on sometimes. You know, when you watch
him in this rush, which is amazing to.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Me, it's not fair. He's been and hopefully everything as
a record in this Hopefully everything gets worked out there.
The next part of your journey, coach, I want to
dig into is is you know, I don't know, gosh,
you couldn't have been too far behind in years of
when the first GM was named. I think might have
been Austin Thomas at LSU might have been the first
one who was named officially got the title of GM
(09:21):
of a college program. But you've done it in a
couple of different spots at Auburn and at West Virginia,
And I mean, even I guess I'll just start here,
how quickly did it change? Like was it changing? We've
seen college football change so drastically. I mean, just give
us an example of just getting into that role and
how you observe the changes that were taking place?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Well, you know, and again I went in with I
was lucky enough to be around head coaches that knew me,
and they were like, Okay, let's structure this however you want.
And I structured it just like a prosystem. There was
no doubt me that the do you to be split up?
And you know, the transfer portal like treated just like
the pro side in the NFL, and the high school
(10:03):
side was just like the college side.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
The thing was is a lot of places were how
would I put this, they're more concentrating. There's still concentrating
on the high school piece of it. And you had
to make a decision with how much money you had
because they say cap it's not cap, it's a budget,
And how much you have in a budget to actually
be able to afford people. Because here's the thing, the
(10:29):
transfer portal gets really really expensive, especially in May, because
desperation sets off and a lot of teams go, oh, gosh,
we don't have any more tackles, or we don't we
need a guy really really bad.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Well, then they're going over pay for one.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So I had to structure where I wanted sixty percent
of the roster to be high school kids because I
couldn't afford to jump into the portal and overspend for
lesser talent. So I was hoping to hold those guys
as long as I could and pay those guys when
they progressed with their performance to just try to keep
them around. Now, don't get me wrong, if somebody came
(11:05):
knocking and you know, it goes from three hundred to
five hundred thousand dollars, I couldn't compete.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
So it was like, I'm going to lose them anyway.
You know.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
The only thing I tried to do is just concentrate
on development piece and trying to help them become NFL players.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
And you know, and it helped you.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
In the way, but it changes like every five minutes
because you know, it was so uncovered and the NCAA
wasn't stepping in on anything that was getting done, and
I don't think they're going to. And just like the
Deloitte piece where they say that, you know, anything over
they get six hundred dollars that you know they have
(11:42):
to check on market value. Well wait till somebody says
they say no to that for a sixty thousand dollars
deal in Chicago or you know, a fifty thousand dollars
deal in la And the player goes, okay, well, we're
just consumed because they can't they don't understand market value.
Somebody's willing to pay me that, why can't I get it?
(12:02):
So it's so ungoverned. That's the biggest problem. And I
think that you're going to have to get to a
point where you're going to have to have a commissioner,
you're going to have to have to your contracts, you're
going to have to make them employees, you're going to
have to have a CBA.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
And it's I think it's going to become a minor
league for the NFL. I really do.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And because right now it's a mess, and there's a
lot of lies out there. There's you know, hey, this
quarterback's making eight million dollars.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
No, he's not. He's not. You know, he's that.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
They're maybe talking about an eight million dollar deal for
six years, you know, or something like that. But you know,
the agents are putting out there because you guys know
you dealt with agents in the league. They're going to
put out the big numbers so they get bigger clients,
you know, and they're going to beat their chest. And
I got the richest quarterback contract of all time, if
here we go. I mean, so I went round and
(12:58):
round and round, and I didn't mean to. But that's
what managing being a gym in college is like. If
you have to handle everything. And I had to handle everything,
even even the advanced work. I did the advance work too,
because you know, I picked the mismatches out, you know,
for the coaches, because coaches don't watch player player, they
(13:21):
watched scheme and scheme. Well, I'm like, okay, you know,
you can pick on this Mike linebacker because he's not
very good. Put him in space. You can make sure
that you're attacking this you know, this guy, we call
him Fish. I found him Fish, so, you know, and
then overseeing the high school recruiting piece, you know, overseeing
the transfer portal, handle on the contracts, you know, actually
(13:42):
negotiating contracts. It's it's hard, it's really hard. So, like
I said, I bounced around. I apologize, but.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
That's I want everybody to get a feel for it.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
That's my day. Trust me. I used to say, hey,
just wake around a little bit. It's going to change.
Just waiting.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I mean, somebody's going to be doing something different, and
somebody's gonna be trying to escape the system. Somebody's going
to be trying to do something different and it's just
not going to get called out. It's not going to
get penalized. I mean, you know, heck, I mean, what
was the last one? It was like, I think West
Virginia suit the suit to get to get eligible. It
wasn't that that's not eligible. I mean, so is it
(14:23):
still student athletes or is it not? And I'm not
taking a West Virginia. I'm just saying, you know, guess what,
anytime every time you turn around, well here's okay, pobbying.
When did junior college become you know, not eligible or
not from part of the clock, right, because when you
when you and I play, I mean all of us.
It's ten semesters, right, Yeah, that was it yet ten semesters.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
You have five or four.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Now it's different.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And I think, and I may be totally off, but
I think that there's going to be another lawsuit about
almost an anti trust because how can you make a
student leap, I mean player lead that's making money, that's
making eleven How can you prevent them from doing that?
You know, because I'll betch you those you guys are
(15:08):
going to be playing seven or eight years now, I
mean college now, because they're.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Gonna make more money there than they're ever gonna make
in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
You guys know that there's seven draft picks out there
that will never make that kind of money and they
may not make a team, but they can stick around
three more years and make.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Jure, I I got to ask you this because if
you're scouting and you go from looking at NFL players
and college players, how different is your eye for high
school talent?
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Now?
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Like, how big of a transition was that to go
from looking at guys that are in our thirties to
now we're talking about sixteen seventeen year olds and trying
to project out how those guys are going to evolve
and eventually develop to be played.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Go back farther, Buffy, it's worse than that. You're evaluating
ninth graders. I mean, and I swear to you, it
was really really hard for me because I'd see that
a kid, you know, from the class of twenty eight
just got offered by UNC and I'm going, like, they
just offered a guy that's six foot colleens one hundred
and thirty five pounds. I couldn't do it, you know.
(16:18):
And I still had to see some maturation. I still
had to see some you know, almost you know what we.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Call big boy ball.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I still got to see some big boy ball before
I actually like, I want to pull the trigger on guys.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
And I still wanted to see some size.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I wanted to see him in person, you know, because
you guys know, I mean, you can just check out
the body frame and sometimes you go, you know, hey,
he's going to be a real big player. He's gonna
be a real big boy or a spoof. He may
not get much bigger. I mean that those hips aren't wide,
the shoulders aren't wide, and you know, parents aren't very
big was a chance he's not going to get him bigger,
(16:51):
you know, so I was still looking for the traits.
But again I'm also looking at the competition. Is if
he in Georgia and he's starting as a ninth grader
against Buford and he's got production, I am a little
bit more thrilled, you know, to offer a kid like that.
But if he's not and it's just on you know,
(17:14):
hype from on three or twenty four to seven or whatever,
I'm not and I'm not dogging out those services, but
you know, I still have to see it with my eyes.
But and it was just so hard for me when
the measurables which is not there. Yeah, it was just hard.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Now this has been This has been great, coach. I
hate the fact I've chewed up the shot clock so
much on stuff outside of your current gig. But I've
got to get I've got to get you before I
know we got wrapped here soon. But I I'm excited
for you in this new opportunity. We were talking before
you came on about how much you're enjoying this role
at the Panini Senior Ball. So just give us, give
us a little thirty thousand foot view of where things
(17:53):
stand right now with the with the leagues, with the
sports premiere All Star Game, and what you're excited about
going forward.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well, the one thing is we put out the Senior
Bowl top three hundred. I didn't like the idea of
eight hundred and fifty or nine hundred players out there
because I wanted to produce it down and make this
an honor as just even put them on the top
three hundred, and again, I got a great feedback from
a lot of coaches, a lot of liaisons that said,
(18:19):
you know, hey, we're for over debt because you know,
this is a prestigious, you know bowl game. I mean,
it's the premier bowl game, all star game of ball,
and it always have been, always willy. So that's the
one thing I started with. And now they can play
their way into an invite if they're outside of the
three hundred. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying out
of these three hundred, I'm gonna take one hundred and
forty out of that, you know, three hundred that's gonna
(18:40):
be a roster. Now, there's tons of time for guys
to actually you know, play their way into the game.
With production and everything else, the other piece of it is,
you know that we're kicking off a lot of different things.
And I changed the schedule of the entire week, and
I think you'll all be for real because there will
be only one night of interviews on Monday evening, and
(19:02):
the interviews will be in the morning on Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday, and every single evening.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Will be free.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
That's great, that's great. It's good for the restaurants in town.
I know they're on things.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Here's here's here's why I mean, and please put this
out there. This used to and you guys know this.
This used to be the NFL coach's kind of unofficial convention.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, until until.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
The interviews got so structured and everything else that they
started getting caught up by the personal departments.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Going, well, if you're there, you're going to be in
here interviewing all night long.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And well, they came down here to network, they came
down here looking for a different job. They came down
here if they're fired, they're looking for a job. Well,
it was the great time for that because when they
go to the compline, most of the jobs are already filed.
So I'm trying to get these guys excited about coming
down here and want the coaches to know part of this,
I mean just part of it was for them. This
was primarily about the player, because you guys have been
(19:54):
through the interviews just like I had, And when I.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Went through them, I was beat down. I guess what,
I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
What they felt after a full day of practice and
everything else, and then all of a sudden, you go
and eat and you're stuck in there from seven o'clock
to ten o'clock every time. So I really started about
the player. But now it's kind of morphed into guess
what personal people are going to be free.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Coaches are going to start coming back down here. They're
going to be free.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
You know, the players and the agents can get together
at night, because they were complaining about they could never
see their clients at night, you know, because we rush
them off the field to get them to eat and
get them to meetings.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Well they were like, well when can we what we
meet with them? Well you couldn't.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
So, like I said, I'm trying to make it better
for everybody. But it started with the player, and that's
where they'll always kind of end and start with me.
But I think I'm kind of hitting a lot of
other you know areas by just doing this.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Did you tell me? Tell us right now? What is
your staff like, this is the kickoff of Fisier, kickoff
to college football season. What do you what are your
staff doing this week and throughout the season.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Well, I'm not going out this week.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I'll be going out probably like every other week or
maybe every third week.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
And and you know I can get more done, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
On multi view on you two TV and watch sixteen
games and you know, check the flashes and then go
back to maca watch the tape. Well, we have various
scouts that are posted all over the country and they
go to games that they deem important for them because
they're grading tape. Now, we just gave them their lists,
so they're cross checking us, and then we're cross checking them,
(21:26):
you know, throughout the fall, and it becomes a collaborative,
just like just like the league does. Jim, you know,
Jim Nagge did a great job here, and you know
he structured this the right way. So I'm not changing
any of the structure. It's built like an NFL and
ball club because we got two in house scouting assistants
we've got you know, Jack Gilmore's my you know, Ops
(21:47):
got heat, great state by grade tape, the scouting assistants,
great tape. And then we got ten other guys out
on the road that are grading tape too, and you know,
again it's it's a well organized machine. And I'm happy
beat that I walked into something where when I walked
in the door, there was already two NIF players on
the and that was in I think it was late
(22:07):
Nay when I first interviewed and I saw the boy,
so there ahead of schedule.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
They really are. So that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
And you know, getting the invites won't go out until
about middle November.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Guys can play into this band.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I keep saying that, you know, I don't think it's
just because the three hundreds after there be you know,
just dealing off for those three hundred players.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
So that's what's going on. So it's gonna be busy, fault.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, I'm excited for I'm excited for this new role.
I'm excited to get out there. It won't be too
long before we'll be out there for this ball game.
And the meantime, coach, now that you're you're settled in there,
just go across the street. Let's go get a little
Mediterranean sandwich shop. It's a good spot. We can go
hit panini, pizza, whatever you want, whatever you want for lunch.
It's it's on us. Get go enjoy yourself.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Hey, I'm going to trust me. I never got that.
I never got any opportunities to down here. You know that.
It was always like, hey, we're going to check flight.
Hey we're going. Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
We're gonna have plenty of time now. But hey, look
forward to seeing you guys down here. And you know,
anytime you need me, please feel free.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
We will reach out. Coach. Enjoy enjoy the kick off
the college football. It's great to catch up with you. You
didn't have to answer it because I already knew I
was your favorite quarterback that you that's right, that's right, baby,
all right, appreciate you, coach, have a great one.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
See you guys.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
So as I told you, it was a great conversation.
Drew is doing fantastic stuff. A unique journey, going from
being a coach, DJ's coach to being a scout to
now taken over the Senior Bowl. After a short stint
as a general manager at Auburn and then at West Virginia.
Fantastic insight. We're looking forward to having him back on
as we get closer to having the paths of the draft,
(23:49):
which includes a stop in Mobile, Alabama for the Senior Bowl.
But until next time, I'm Bucky Brooks. That was Dame Jeremiah.
This is move the sticks. We'll talk to you next time.
At the cost contain inste
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Jeremiah
Bucky Brooks
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