Today, I reached out to a player whose season is over, and who’s been receiving our newsletter for draft-eligible players since November. He’s in the conversation for a camp invite, I think, and I figured he might have received an invitation to a lower-tier all-star game and/or signed with an agent, as his season’s been over for weeks. I got this response from him:

“I do not have an agent. I would assume my chances are just about gone. I will do my pro day and give it a shot. There will be plenty of scouts out there for a few other players on my team. Thanks for all the informative emails. I appreciate it. “

I immediately responded and encouraged him. He was feeling that his chances are done, that no agent interest equals no chances of playing in the NFL. That’s just not true.

If you’re reading this blog and you’re in this young man’s shoes — three-year starter at an FBS (D1) school, with plenty of conference accolades along the way — no way should you be as discouraged as he is. All is not lost. In the meantime, if you’re serious about giving the NFL a shot, there are a couple things you can do.

1. If you’re done with your season, take a break and get healed up and ready to train hard.

2. Get your film together. There’s a good chance that you’ll need it at some point, whether that be to show an agent or a scout or someone else of influence. You don’t want to be scrambling for film 24 hours before you need it.

3. Identify a place — and this could be your school — where you can work on your speed and drills. To some degree, pure strength is something you can build. Speed and explosiveness are something you can’t ‘teach,’ and they are the two things that will matter most at your pro day, your next big test in the NFL draft process.

4. Do a little research on agents local to you. At some point, you might need to reach out to them if they aren’t reaching out to you. When you do, you need to have answers to some questions (like film and training).

5. Don’t be afraid, don’t be nervous, don’t be scared. It’s not at all uncommon for players who make it into NFL camps to not sign with agents until well into January, maybe a month away. I don’t encourage you to put things off, or to take a care-free approach, but I also don’t want you to be discouraged.

If you still don’t know what to do and need some direction, contact us. Maybe we can help. But above all else, don’t get discouraged.

Now that we’ve reached the start of November, college players are starting to think post-college playing days. So are all-star game organizers, and slowly but surely, news is starting to trickle out about all-star game invites. One such invite caught my attention last week.

The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, currently the No. 3 game in the all-star cycle, invited Syracuse FS Durell Eskridge to play in its game slated for Jan. 17 in Los Angeles. Normally, that wouldn’t be a big deal. What makes it a little unusual, however, is that Eskridge will not (technically) be done with his playing career in January, as he’s a redshirt junior.

As the college game moves inch by inch into an official minor league for the NFL, I guess this isn’t particularly surprising. However, it is disappointing. When the Senior Bowl began inviting redshirt seniors to its game in 2013, it was billed as a special circumstance, and one only arrived at after receiving permission from the school’s head coach. What’s more, the player invited only received his invite after the season and after he’d already declared his intention to enter the draft a year early. To my knowledge, Eskridge has made no such declaration, though given that the NFLPA has deemed him to be a legitimate NFL prospect, I’d be surprised if such an announcement isn’t forthcoming.

Look, I know these players aren’t competing in major college football for the fun of hanging out with their friends, but it’s still a major leap to start inviting players who could conceivably improve their lots in life by spending another season on the college level. Of course, in its zeal to show that it hosts the biggest and best all-star game, the NFLPA has already shown an inclination to invite juniors in its own, ham-handed way several years ago.

This resulted in embarrassment and a scarcity of NFL scouts at the game in 2012, but the PA appears to be headed to no such change of direction this year. It seems to be juniors invited, full speed ahead.

In the grand scheme of things, I guess this matters little. However, as this policy is expanded and the other games fall in line, inviting their own juniors and eventually even encouraging underclassmen to leave early, it’s going to be a net negative for the game, in my opinion. But time will tell. Hopefully, there will remain at least a few collegiate players who take the long view on an NFL career. We’ll see.

We decided to go back inside the numbers to take a look at a few trends related to the states in which NFL players went to college. There weren’t many surprises, and the numbers were very similar to the states by high school. We also checked into the twisting paths some players took to the league.

• California is tops with 179 players from Golden State colleges. Texas is next with 162, while Florida is just behind with 160. Those three states also make up the top three if you go by players by hometowns (California, 277; Florida, 255 and Texas, 242).
• The only other state with more than 100 of its college players in the NFL is Alabama (102).
• Georgia doesn’t do a great job of keeping its high school talent in-state. Though the Peach State is fourth (125) in NFL players at the high school level, it’s just No. 12 (69) in players from Georgia colleges.
• Ohio is fifth in NFL players from its high schools (101) and its colleges (96).
• There are a lot of schools that serve as football factories, and even some junior colleges that produce their share of future pros. However, there’s only one player in the NFL who went to the Military Academy Prep School, i.e., the ‘juco’ for people wanting to attend West Point. It’s Seahawks DE Julius Warmsley, who finished up at Tulane.
• Vikings DT Tom Johnson is, unofficially, the only active player who has experience in NFL Europe, which dissolved in 2007. Actually, Johnson has a closet full of jerseys as he’s also played in the Arena League and the CFL after he finished up at Southern Miss.
• Broncos DE Chase Vaughn has played in more leagues even than Johnson, having experinence in the CFL, IFL, AFL and UFL. By the way, he played at Adams State before finishing up at CSU-Pueblo. There’s also Cowboys FB Tyler Clutts, who’s played in the CFL, AFL and UFL.
• Only one player we tracked has played with three Division I-A (FBS) programs. It’s Texans QB Tom Savage (Pittsburgh, Arizona and Rutgers), drafted 4/135 this spring.

It always amazes me how many people want to go it alone in life.

“He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” That’s a phrase that applies to so many people in this business. In the last week, I’ve spoken to two former NFL players whose sons will be in the coming draft class. I called them to offer a free newsletter I do for parents of potential draftees; it’s free and provided strictly for educational purposes, no strings attached. Both of them rejected my entreaties, one quite hostilely.

Today, two more people asked to be removed from the list, but neither had a football pedigree. In fact, one of them, who didn’t seem to understand that I was offering something that cost them nothing but helped them make more informed decisions, asked if I was soliciting advertising. I assured the person that I wasn’t. “Ok, in that case, I spoke to the guys here and they are not interested,” was the response. Does that make sense?

About a year ago, I reached out via Twitter to a newly certified agent, again offering a different newsletter series written specifically for new contract advisors. His response was something like, “what could you possibly tell me that I don’t already know?” This is a guy that is in a barren region of the country for NFL talent (the Pacific Northwest), who’s under 30, and who presumably doesn’t have unlimited resources, but he was quite defiant when I suggested there may be something he didn’t/doesn’t know.

In the financial realm, there are at least 2-3 people I talk to every year who want to tell me (several times in one phone conversation) how much money they have under management, which I guess they think will translate seamlessly into representing dozens of NFL clients.

Forgive my rant. I know that it’s hard to know who to trust in this business and I know I’m far from a household name/brand. Still, I believe you can be too cynical, too untrusting, in life. Especially when it comes to this business, if you have nothing to lose by taking a chance on someone, I think you should.

This Saturday, I got a text from an old friend. Though he’s one of my two best friends, we rarely talk unless he’s in an argument and needs someone to help him settle it. In fact, his exact text was, “Call if you have a chance. Need to settle an argument.” It was minutes until my son’s birthday party and I was rushing through Kroger picking up last-minute items, panicked and sweating with still several things to do on my list. So naturally I called back immediately.

Here was his conundrum. He’d been watching a game with friends and he’d gotten into an argument over how many college players arrive at school with NFL dreams/expectations. Ryan’s contention was that only about half entertained thoughts of playing on Sunday; his friend said it was more like 90 percent. Without hesitating, I told Ryan he’d lost his bet. Then I told him this story.

In the fall of 2010, I flew with a group to Phoenix. We were there for a news conference announcing the first-year Eastham Energy College All-Star Game, which would be played the following January. As part of our visit, we went to the football offices at Arizona State University. It was a lot of fun to meet then-head coach Dennis Erickson, but there’s one thing I remember most about that trip. It was the wall outside the coaches offices. It was about 30 feet long and 10 feet high, and had on it a long, floor-to-ceiling frame. Mounted within this frame, taking up the whole wall, were half-shells of all 32 NFL helmets, gleaming and ominous. Beneath each helmet was a list of every Sun Devil who had ever played for that team. There were several names beneath each one. It was incredibly impressive, and seemed to dominate the office. I immediately posted it on my Facebook page and remarked on what a difference it must make in recruiting.

I remember one of the first comments under this post was from one of my agent clients, and it was something to the effect of, ‘every school has this in its offices.’ That was a real epiphany to me. Here’s why.

I marketed ITL to schools pretty heavily in the mid-00s, and was met with a brick wall. I presumed that they didn’t need me because they already did extensive work schooling their players and their parents on the league, and how things work, and what their players’ chances of playing NFL football were, etc. Later, I found out my presumption was all wrong. In fact, most schools I come across are quite light on educating about the draft process. They tend to take a three-pronged approach: (1) Keep your focus on the field, (2) you don’t need to talk to an agent and they’re all bad news anyway, and (3) all that stuff will take care of itself if you’re good enough.

To me this is horribly irresponsible. Still, there’s a bigger issue. It’s one thing to brush off the NFL when players are on their way out the door, but quite another if schools are using it to get players in the door. Clearly, players who might not otherwise have thought they were NFL caliber are, at the least, being given that hope, that possibility, by schools.

I’m not sure I’m in favor of paying scholarship athletes a stipend, as has gained major traction in recent years. However, do remember that wall of helmets the next time a school official somewhere goes on and on about ‘protecting kids,’ the purity of college football, and the homespun appeal of amateur athletics.