Syracuse football star Alton Robinson is heading to Mobile, Alabama for the Reese’s Senior Bowl. Here are all the details.
Syracuse football will be represented at the Reese’s Senior Bowl in 2020.
On Thursday morning in an official press release, it was revealed that senior defensive end Alton Robinson has accepted an invitation to play in the 71st Reese’s Senior Bowl.
Alton is the 58th member of the Orange to earn an invite to the most prestigious college football all-star game on the planet.
https://twitter.com/seniorbowl/status/1194803341680873473
When the decision was made our Paul A. Esden Jr. had an exclusive conversation with Jim Nagy, Executive Director of the Reese’s Senior Bowl.
Q: Why Alton and what went into the decision?
Jim Nagy:
"“Alton has been at the top of our board since last Spring. He’s a player that we really think highly of. Finding pass rushers at the next level is imperative. You aren’t going to be a good football team if you can’t affect the quarterback. Robinson’s ability to do that has put him squarely on our board for the last 10 months and he hasn’t moved. It’s a fluid process and players often move up and down our board, but even with his numbers down this year from 2018, the traits are there. By bringing him down here to Mobile for a week we think that with all the one-on-one drills we do leading up to the game, we think he can really help himself ahead of the 2020 NFL Draft.”"
For context here’s a look at his stat production
“Robinson is the ACC active leader with 17.5 sacks and ranks ninth on Syracuse’s career sacks chart. Additionally, Robinson has 94 tackles, 29.5 tackles for loss, five forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries in 33 games (31 starts),” per the official press release.
Q: It seems like the marketing for this event has been taken to another level with you leading the charge, why was that so important to you?
Jim Nagy:
"“I just felt really strongly that we needed to market our game differently. I think with us sending our scouts around the country and going to games and posting videos is a really great way to connect with the players. There’s a recruiting element to this job that went unattended to the last several years and it’s hard. We don’t have a budget to send people around the country to meet with kid’s parents as a college does. So social media was a really great avenue for us to connect with the players. I think this is super sponsorable because we have such a unique event. When you have over 100 draftable players, multiple top-10 picks, and future NFL stars in a small-town environment is amazing. This should be a national destination for football fans every year. It’s an awesome week and the NFL descends upon us for seven days. We have 900 NFL people down here, all the decision-makers, head coaches, and GMs. So we just really owed it to ourselves to ramp up the marketing for the Senior Bowl.”"
Q: How proud are you with the results? The majority of the people that attend the Senior Bowl have been drafted and some have even become NFL superstars.
Jim Nagy:
"“I’m really proud of the guys who come down here and aren’t afraid to compete. These kids have a lot of people in their ears telling them not to come play in an all-star game and that they shouldn’t risk getting hurt. That’s not what the NFL teams want. They want guys who can compete. The most rewarding part of the job over the last year and a half is seeing last year’s Senior Bowl alum go on to the NFL and have so much early success.”"
Q: The Senior Bowl selection process is a bit of a mystery to a lot of football fans, how do you guys select the roster and who deserves an invite to Mobile, Alabama for the Senior Bowl?
Jim Nagy:
"“It’s an extremely thorough process. I spent 18 years in the NFL and we’re trying to pattern our game after an NFL personnel department. It was really important for me to hire a team of scouts, this isn’t a one-man or a two-man job. We have scouts all around the country that have prior experience in the NFL. Not only are they at the games and watching tape at home, but they’re very well connected. Each of them has their own network of contacts in the NFL and at each respective school. So in other words collectively we have great reach. So we go to games live, we watch a ton of tape, and we talk with the NFL to see what players they want to see ultimately. It’s a multi-layered process and I believe we’re the first all-star game to ever select our rosters this way and I strongly feel it’s the only way to do it. This game is about getting the best of the best here.”"
Check out the rest of the interview below!
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.