I did not claim that. I said he was probably following the same workout routine the BYU football players had been doing all along. That would probably not include verts and broad jumps. Not done specifically with the combine in mind, like the custom training facilities do with players.
ok, that left Ansah on campus all by his lonesome, so we can't say he chose to not prepare while his teammates were working hard doing so. Now it's time to figure out BYU coaching involvement.
Bottom line to me is this. 1. Whenever we hear reports from a player's trainer that he skipped a lot of his pre-Combine workouts, don't we ding him for that? What's the difference here? Isn't this even worse? 2. How much time do we spend talking up guys like Shamarko Thomas who have ridiculous work ethic. The Shark is fast. We all know that. Anyone that spends 5 minutes watching tape of him knows that. He didn't have much to prove at the Combine. But he idolizes Ray Lewis. Ray Lewis works out 3 times a day so the Shark works out 3 times a day. Teammates come to his house to watch television or play video games, where's the Shark? Outside pushing a truck uphill. Teammate comes to the gym late at night, who is there? The Shark. He doesn't have coaches telling him to do this. And certainly none of his teammates do it. We laud this guy. He "gets it", right? So why isn't the opposite true? If this is an unqualified positive, isn't the lack of this kind of unqualified positive, in fact, a negative?
No, it's definitely a concern. I'd just like to know what caused the events to play out this way. Was it b/c the foreign Ansah didn't fully understand the gravity of the situation due to lack of direction from his coaches, or was it b/c he was unmotivated and not taking it as seriously as he should've?.... or is it possible he naively believed his prior years of track & field training had him about as prepared for it as he believed possible and that he was simply ready "as is"? I mean, it's not like he showed up and disappointed. I can understand a little if he's being naive (b/c of his foreignness) and if BYU hasn't supported him properly, but if he intentionally chose to not give it his undivided attention, then I'd be a fool to not be worried by it.
Personally, it could be any of those possibilities, and one is just about as concerning as the next...because all of them could persist over time.
very true. At some point you gotta ask yourself, "where does the responsibility factor kick in"?.... b/c he's right there on the verge of excuses not mattering.
Other than Matt Jones, has this ever happened before, that we know of? (A guy not prepping at ALL for the combine... like, at all at all?)
yup. He showed up incredibly out of shape, and without notice packed his bags and ditched the combine... and was still drafted 6th by Cincy.
I notice this year was really the first year Andre Smith played well. Just coincidentally happened to be a contract year. Wonder what HE will do when he gets paid...
http://espn.go.com/nfl/draft2013/st...-became-draft-top-defensive-end-espn-magazine Interesting read/story about Ansah. Here's a few comments made about him: Definitely sounds like a guy BYU could skip worrying about the basics with and instead jump right into advanced pass rush 401, eh Jim. It seems obvious his BYU coaches did prioritize coaching him up on the nuances of the game first and foremost or else he currently wouldn't be as sound a player in that regard compared to the neophyte who was told to simply go hit the guy with the ball. If they had to take time away from developing him as a pass rusher in order to ensure he was more fundamentally sound and with a better understanding of the game, then so be it; it's the right decision. Even at the D1 level he sure as heck doesn't look like he's only been playing the game for 3 years, and there are plenty of aspects to his game that are advanced enough after 3 years to disqualify any notion that he doesn't put in the time to develop his game. As a defensive player he had to cram years and years worth of learning & developing into just three, so obviously becoming great in all phases of the game would pose an impossibility, but despite just 2 years of prior football knowledge & experience there are quotes from Boise State's coach and a Ga Tech lineman mentioning how Ansah killed both their teams as well as just about everyone else last year, so obviously he put in the work to go from not knowing where the pads go, to special teamer, to BYU trying to figure out a position for him, to First Team All Independent and Pro Football Weekly All American honorable mention, to lastly dominating the Senior Bowl. LOL at McShay's comment about Ga Tech's fullback. I remember saying something about that fullback a few months ago as well. Guy got creamed play after play.
Wouldn't that make his performance all the more impressive? What makes him even more intriguing is Kacy Rodgers rep as a top notch Dline coach, the reason given why Vaughn Martin signed here.
Count me in as you already know. Let Misi walk next year and draft Van Noy to be our Clay Matthews type disrupter.
b/c it's the nature of the game considering there's a salary cap and we have a lot of contracts up for renewal next year, so we might not be able to afford them all? That and would you rather pay Misi a decent contract to backup Van Noy, you grotty uphill gardener?
