Syracuse Football: Alton Robinson was a ‘no brainer’ pick for Senior Bowl

Q: Specifically with Alton Robinson, how many people were involved in looking at him and what did you guys see that made him an obvious candidate? 

Jim Nagy:

"“A lot of people are involved. Our North Area scout Bill Dekraker who most recently worked with the New York Jets he did a great job on Alton. I’m sure he’ll be back in the NFL after spending a year with us, he’s been in the league a very long time. We did a lot of tape study and talked internally. But there are certain guys that we want to talk to the NFL about to see what their interest level is and Alton was an easy guy for us. We didn’t have to waste much time and ask a ton of people if they wanted to see Alton Robinson. He was a no-brainer for us here at the Senior Bowl. His get-off quickness, great power for a guy his size, he’s not an incredibly big person but he’s got power in his body. Plus Alton has a natural feel for rushing the passer. He can get after the quarterback and that’s a premium in the NFL. We know he can have a huge week down here in Mobile.”"

Q: So give us the details, how did Alton Robinson react to being invited?

Jim Nagy:

"“We did some things on our own. I hand-delivered a few invites to some smaller school players and we coordinated with some schools that had a current NFL player who had ties to the Senior Bowl. The cool thing has been some of these universities doing cool things with social media with players who received invites and accepted them. Texas did a cool thing this week with the three guys we invited. Schools are doing a really good job with producing their own content and it’s smart for them and that will help their recruiting. That’s been completely unsolicited these schools have been promoting us on their own which is awesome for the players and us. When it comes to Alton we sent the physical invite to head coach Dino Babers. It’s up to each head coach if they want to hold the invite until the end of the year or give it to the player immediately. Dino got it to Alton right away and got him signed up for the Senior Bowl.”"

Q: So Jim I don’t know if you can reveal this, but are there any other members of the Orange who could be heading down to Mobile for the Reese’s Senior Bowl?

Jim Nagy:

"“Yeah, it’s definitely possible. There are a couple of guys that we’ve seen that have a real chance of being a part of the process. The week of Thanksgiving we reach out to teams, last year it was 17 teams, to work out the rest of our roster. There will be several players from Syracuse in those discussions.”"

Q: When will those decisions be made official?

Jim Nagy:

"“It’ll be the end of November, the week after Thanksgiving.”"

Alton was the first member of the Orange invited, but he may not be the last from the sounds of it. The 2020 Reese’s Senior Bowl will be held on Saturday, Jan 25 at 2:30 p.m. at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Alabama. The game will be televised on NFL Network, per the official press release.