The process of pulling useable information out of draft prospects fascinates me. As the entire draft process has become more refined and former scouts and general managers are being hired to prepare draft prospects for their interviews at the combine, it’s tougher to get unvarnished truth out of the interview process. I asked retired NFL scout Oscar Lofton, who was with the 49ers for the better part of two decades evaluating talent. Here’s another interesting segment from Oscar on our YouTube channel, and here’s the entire interview. Enjoy.

“I treated (players I interviewed) like I was one of the coaches, you know? (Like) I was going to coach them myself, and I would always try to get on their good side. I’d try to say, ‘hey, when you played Notre Dame, man, you had the quarterback, you know, he’s peeking over here, like “here he comes again!”’ You know, try to give the guy some confidence so he’ll open up a little to you, and (I would) talk well about his playing time and where (I thought he would be) going . . . in the draft. You know, ‘hey, there’s a lot of buzz about you, I need to find out about this,’ (and) you know, ‘when you come to our place (if we draft you), what are you going to bring?’

“You know, something positive to get him to come out a little bit. ‘What are you going to bring to the 49ers? When you come and you line up in the first exhibition game, or the first practice against our All-Pro left tackle, or whoever, you’re covering the best receiver, we got Jerry Rice, what do you bring to the table, what are you going to do?’ Generally they take that as a little bit of a challenge, and they’re going to speak and say, ‘well, you know, maybe he’s a great receiver, but I’m going to make him work through his routes, and then I’m going to try to strip him of the ball,’ and I’m not going to try to embarrass him.

“If he’s a receiver, you say, you know, ‘we’re going to put (former 49ers cornerback) Nate Clements on you. What are you going to do to him?’ ‘Well, you know, shake his jockstrap or whatever. You know, something cocky. Maybe you start out, if the kid’s a receiver . . . say, ‘look I used to coach receivers,’ you know, and usually I would be wearing a silky shirt. . . because, you know how silky receivers are, and smooth. So you get them at ease and generally they’ll open up if they think you’ve got their best interests at heart.

“Guys that are confrontational like that, that’s their personality, my personality is to get on the good side of them, to try to bring out everything from them in a positive way, and that’s just my nature. But . . . you can’t be somebody you’re not. You go jump in some guy’s stuff . . . and he clams up on you, then you don’t go anywhere. You have to have a technique that you feel comfortable with, and . . . if that doesn’t work, you maybe try something else.

“You get some kids that you just can’t pull a word out of, you know? Everything’s ‘yes sir, no sir,’ and they’ve been trained to do that too, you know? It used to be ‘no’ and ‘yeah,’ or else, ‘I don’t know how to answer that’ or something . . . but they’re pretty well-trained now, and I think kids are more comfortable in the interviews and stuff now, again, because they’re prepared. A lot of times when they hadn’t been exposed to the end of that, it’s kind of like the first time you get on an airplane, you know you’re trying to help them fly it, you know every time it moves you’re trying to balance it and all that. Then after you fly awhile, you learn how to sleep on a plane.”

Last week, we checked in with former Broncos scout Cal McCombs, who now runs personnel for the annual Medal of Honor Bowl in Charleston, S.C. After talking to Cal about the ’10 draft last week, I thought I’d pick his brain a bit about the 2011 draft, which also turned up a few gems in Denver.

Though Cal left after the combine and wasn’t actually in the war room on Draft Day 2011, the team had already charted its course when he departed in late February. Here are his thoughts on two stars the team selected that spring.

On drafting Texas A&M’s Von Miller No. 2 overall in 2011: “One of the reasons we had to take a guy like that high was that we had drafted a guy in the first round from Tennessee a year back (Robert Ayers, drafted eighteenth overall), and he wasn’t the quick-twitch guy we thought he was (Ayers has 17 career sacks through six seasons). We had (Louisville DE) Elvis Dumervil that we had gotten in the draft earlier (4/126 in 2006), and he was a steal, and Dumervil had come on like gangbusters, so we had one on one side that could do something and we needed someone on the other side.”

On drafting Portland St. TE Julius Thomas in the fourth round in 2011: With the Thomas kid, I think the thought process when I was there is, we had (TE Tony Scheffler, chosen 2/61 in 2006) who could stretch the middle of the field, and then another tight end named Daniel Graham from Colorado (signed as a free agent by the Broncos in ’07). We had those two (but) Scheffler got traded to Detroit (in April 2010), and Graham was on his last legs, and (new head coach) Josh (McDaniels) wanted a tight end because they were big on tight ends at New England, and (Thomas) was a heck of an athlete and Josh wanted somebody that could catch the ball. Now, Julius wasn’t the most courageous blocker, but he could catch the ball. (Josh) needed somebody that could get open at the tight end position, and the blocking was secondary, because at Denver we had Graham that was the blocker. Josh’s primary thinking — and this is me speculating — but his primary thought was that (Thomas) was an athletic guy that could catch the football. Josh had hired a (scout) named Adam Peters that took over the West Coast, and when we were there, I remember Adam was really high on (TE Rob) Gronkowski (who had attended Arizona). I think they saw some of that kind of thing in Thomas, and (Thomas) came in there and didn’t have much football experience, and was a former basketball player, but he was able to learn what they wanted him to do and they got him to do what they wanted.”

If you read Wednesday’s post, you know who Cal McCombs is. During the course of our conversation, we discussed the all-star game he works with, the Charleston, S.C.-based Medal of Honor Bowl.

I’m always interested in the inner workings of jobs in football, so I asked Cal what he found to be the hardest part of his job. He said his challenges are much the same of most NFL teams, i.e., finding impact players in the later rounds, because most of the players that come to the lower-ranked games fit that profile.

“It’s easy to find the find the first-, second- and third-rounders,” he said. “Those guys fall off the board. But finding out who can make the team in the fourth or fifth or sixth round is much more difficult.

“What we’re doing now is what we were doing at Denver. We were trying to find the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-round guys, and we had 10 drafted.”

What makes it tougher is that other games can easily cannibalize the Medal of Honor Bowl’s roster. In that respect, it’s not a lot different from major-college recruiting.

“We had some other kids that would have been drafted,” Cal said. “(Senior Bowl Executive Director) Phil Savage calls me the week before our game and says, ‘I gotta take (Florida OC Max) Garcia and (Northwestern FS Ibraheim) Campbell,’ and both of those guys are drafted, and there was also one that got hurt from Florida that got drafted (and couldn’t play in the MOH Bowl), so it’s been fun finding the late-round draft picks.”

After speaking to Cal, I wanted to explore the topic further, so I reached out to a couple other friends who ran games during the ’15 draft cycle. One was Jose Jefferson, Executive Director of the College Gridiron Showcase held in Arlington last year. While he agrees with Cal on the personnel aspect of things, he sees the finances as the toughest part.

“On a business standpoint, there isn’t a great return on the money that’s needed to maintain it,” he said. “In the end, the profit center is the biggest hurdle. I would be interested to know if the investors in the (other all-star) bowls see their money back, let alone profit.

“As for players, I think that is the fun part. For us, it was getting to the lower-level scouts. They are the ones trying to prove themselves, so when you talk to them about guys, they are usually going to give you their top guy they are scouting.   That’s the purpose of these games, to expose the hidden gem. (Ravens draftee) Tray Walker from Texas Southern was our highest pick from our game, fourth round. Truth be told, there is a kid as good or better than him waiting for his shot.”

I rounded it out by calling another friend, Johnny Meads, a former NFL linebacker and ex-Titans scout who is now the Midwest ‘recruiter’ (i.e., scout) for the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl. Johnny said identifying the talent is hard, but convincing a player to attend the NFLPA game and not wait for another call is the hardest part.

“A lot of the guys think they’re going to be at the Senior Bowl,” he said. “Everybody thinks he’s a first-round draft pick, so they’re going to hold out and wait for an invitation from them. The other thing is getting those guys to the game when they’re also playing in the (college football) playoffs, or whatever, in their conferences, and hard to get in contact with them that way. There’s a great number of things that (make it hard) to get them there. Identifying the challenges is kinda difficult, but the players themselves are tough as they’re trying to figure out who they are. Often, they’re D2 or D3 players and they think they’re all-stars.”

I wanted to get back to some deep draft talk for today’s war story, so I called Cal McCombs, who runs the personnel side for the Charleston, SC-based Medal of Honor Bowl. The MOH Bowl is entering its third year, and Cal and his team have done an excellent job of finding late-round talent.

Cal was with the Broncos from 2007-11 as an area scout, and in 2010, the team drafted nine players. All but two of them are still active in the league, and two of them, Broncos WO Demaryius Thomas and Jets WO Eric Decker, are bona fide stars in the league. That’s a bonanza, one of the better drafts in the last decade, and has set the team up for perennial playoff runs.

Cal shared a few of his recollections from that draft with me this morning, and I thought I’d pass them along.

Thomas (taken in the first round, 22nd overall): Cal said the team took Thomas as a pure need pick in the wake of having traded WO Brandon Marshall two weeks before the draft. “We already had the QB, Kyle Orton, that we had received (in the trade of Jay Cutler to the Bears), so we had a proven QB, but the receiver corps at that time was not real strong. You take Brandon Marshall out of there, and now you don’t have the big guy that can take the ball away from somebody. I think the logic behind (the pick) was that you take a big strong receiver (Thomas is 6-3, 229) that can run (4.38 speed), and that’s a powerful combination.”

Cal said the team’s scouts knew about Thomas’ tools, but what cemented the pick was his attitude. “The thing I loved about him was that here’s a guy who had been one of the top(-rated receivers in the draft), and watching him on film, he may have been the best blocking receiver I had ever seen. My thoughts were not that that’s going to be a big thing in the pros, but to me, it showed me that this kid is really an unselfish kid. For him to go through his senior year and not complain about not having the ball thrown to him, and going out there and doing what (Georgia Tech head coach) Paul (Johnson) told him to do (was impressive).”

QB Tim Tebow (1/25): Cal said the team had no illusions about the offense Tebow had played in at Florida or his delivery. Still, his toughness and winning attitude were endearing. “(New head coach) Josh (McDaniels) felt he could help his accuracy and delivery. Taking Tebow would make a splash, and he had to do something to put the Cutler thing to rest. That’s totally speculation, but the guy who made the final decision on Cutler was Josh.”

Cal said he gave Tebow his full endorsement. “I wanted to take him, but a lot of the other guys didn’t. They didn’t see him as the ‘stereotype’ kind of quarterback.” Cal is still a believer: “I look at it this way, and this is just an old scout talking about it, but you have 32 teams carrying three quarterbacks, and you can’t tell me Tebow isn’t one of the top hundred quarterbacks out there right now.”

WO Eric Decker (3/87): Cal said not everyone was sold on the Minnesota pass-catcher, mainly because many scouts were still sore from passing on Ole Miss WO Mike Wallace in the second round the year before. Many in the war room still felt the team needed a deep threat. “He could catch anything, but he wasn’t the fastest guy in the world, and he didn’t give you the top speed. (In the 2009 draft), there was the kid at Ole Miss, Wallace, that could fly, and we hadn’t taken him in the second round that year (despite having three second-round picks), and (the Steelers) had taken him in the third round. He was everything they wanted him to be. (So in 2010,) we didn’t have anybody that could take the top off the defense. We had (WO Eddie) Royal, who was a good slot guy, but not anybody that could just blow by people.”

In this space, I try to recognize people who do things a little differently, and parlay their efforts into success. Today, I want to talk about Michael Quartey, who runs the National Bowl and FCS Bowl, both all-star games in Miami.

First, a few thoughts about Michael’s games. They aren’t storied games like the Senior Bowl or Shrine Game, and each have only a few years worth of history. In addition, they aren’t all-star games in the traditional sense in that expenses aren’t covered, and players must pay a fee to participate. For these two reasons, I’ve always kind of dismissed Mike’s games, as I dismiss all similar games. They just don’t get the kind of scouting coverage that the January games get because, well, they’re more a showcase for less-heralded players.

Still, I’ve come to recognize and respect the work Michael puts into his contests. His story is one of true persistence. The National Bowl and FCS Bowls were not his first charge at football enterprise. He’s also been an agent, and run a series of combines as part of his company, East Preps LLC, and even tried to focus solely on developing offensive linemen, then pairing them with good representation (another idea that has merit, though it’s difficult to pull off). He’s paid the price professionally and personally to achieve. In fact, as I recall, Michael’s wife was due to give birth the week of last December’s games, and somehow, Michael juggled both of these major commitments successfully.

At any rate, it was against this backdrop that I received an email from Michael this morning. It said several of participants in the December 2014 games, 14, in fact, had attended NFL camps this summer. Most of them attended on a tryout basis, and few are still on rosters, but still, that’s pretty impressive. The 100-plus players who attended the games were first identified as legitimate players by Mike and his team, then invited and convinced to cover their own travel, plus pay a small fee (around $600), to participate in the games and the combine that accompanies them. There wasn’t a large bloc of NFL scouts at the games, but still, there were a handful (11 teams represented) plus five CFL teams’ scouts in attendance. That’s not bad, especially when you consider the games had no TV deal, no major media coverage, no string of former players shining on the NFL stage, and not a lot of history.

On the other hand, the games do have Michael. So far, that’s been enough. I’m approached probably every year by someone who wants to start an all-star game. They see it as an easy, reasonably priced route to the glory, fame and buzz of working with the NFL. However, after we talk about the costs and other obstacles, they usually tuck their tails between their legs and figure out another way to spend their time.

I’m not trying to say Michael has the league by the tail, or that tomorrow’s NFL stars are blowing up his email address trying to find a way into the game. What I am saying, however, is that Michael has found a way to gain the excitement, respect, reward and camaraderie associated with helping young men achieve their pro football dreams. That’s way ahead of where a lot of people are, and for that, I congratulate him.

There’s a way to working in this game for everybody. It may not be as a scout, agent, or any of the traditional routes. If you’re aim is to work in this game, keep on trying and seek out alternative routes. It’s working for Michael and it will work for you.