Blue-Gray Practices Pull In Scouts Players From Teams Not In Bowls Have A Good Chance To Impress

While 50 or so players went through drills in a drafty aircraft hangar, double that number of scouts hovered around the edges.

It was the beginning of Blue-Gray week, a few days of practice followed by three hours of football on Christmas Day that will go toward determining the future of many of the players.

“I figure if they’re here, they can’t do anything but help themselves,” said Houston Oilers scout C.O. Brocato. “You can understand a guy not performing too well in a situation like this. But the fact that he got here in the first place helps a great deal.”

Unlike the NFL scouting combine, held every February in Indianapolis, scouts are free to talk to the players.

University of Idaho defensive end Ryan Phillips is among them.

Chilly temperatures drove the Gray squad’s practice into the hangar at Maxwell Air Force Base on Friday, but when the weather warmed over the weekend, scouts got their chance to see the players practice outdoors in pads.

Scouts say the practices - not the game on Christmas Day at Cramton Bowl - is what makes the event worthwhile.

“Basically, you’re looking at them for size, speed, trying to see how they move and how quickly they can adjust to a new system,” Brocato said. “You see that in the practice, then everyone gets the game film and has lots of time to go over it.”

Pretty much any player whose team made a bowl game this year is absent this week, but that doesn’t stop the scouts from coming in droves.

“The teams that are going to bowls aren’t the only ones with good players,” said Mike Allman, a scout for the Seattle Seahawks. “There are some damn good players playing in this game.”

The week might mean more to players from smaller schools, who come in with impressive statistics that don’t mean as much to scouts because they mostly came against non-Division I-A opponents.

Valdosta State quarterback Lance Funderburk is a good example. He passed for 3,732 yards and 35 touchdowns at the Division II school in Georgia. He’s 6-foot-3, 207 pounds and has a pro-quarterback arm. But the big question now is, how will he fare against Division I-A competition?

“This is my biggest chance to show if I can play up to my potential against the big-school players,” said Funderburk, who finished second in the voting for the Harlon Hill Trophy, given to the top player in Division II.

Brocato said he wouldn’t rule out a small-school player, many coming in as John Mobley of Kutztown did last year. The linebacker initially was deemed a high-round prospect. But a good Blue-Gray game helped propel him to the first round, where the Denver Broncos selected him with the 15th pick.