Andre Dillard – Noteworthy
On Thursday, former Woodinville High turned Washington State left tackle Andre Dillard retold the story of his unlikely path to the NFL combine. How he never really played football until he was in the eighth grade, preferring basketball instead, and then put on the pads for reasons that had very little to do with the game itself. “When I first started I was kind of a wuss,” Dillard said. “I wanted to try football just to say I tried it. And I thought it would make me cooler at school.” Did that work? “Kinda,” he said. How he decided to stick with football even though “my first two years, I sucked really bad. I was terrible.”
How he eventually took to the game well enough that he earned all of four scholarship offers as a senior at Woodinville – Eastern Washington, Portland State, Idaho and Washington State (the Cougars, at least, could consider Dillard as something of a legacy – his father, Mitch, played at WSU from 1983-85.) How he enrolled at WSU weighing 240 pounds knowing there was a long way to go before he would ever see the field. He redshirted his first year and barely played as a freshman. “I was this tall, skinny kid, but they saw the shoulders and the arm length and the leg length, and I guess they knew they could work with me,” said Dillard. – Seattle Times
Gardner Minshew II – Noteworthy
After running a 4.97 in the 40-yard dash Saturday morning, Minshew laughed and said “that’s all I’ve got.” It apparently was as he then turned in the exact same time in his second 40. Later, after a cut to commercial following one of the passing drills, Minshew looked into the camera and winked. Minshew understood better than anybody that simply being at the combine was an unexpected gift in a year of them after he had been planning to basically end his football career and transfer from East Carolina to Alabama with designs on learning to coach. Tyler Hilinski’s tragic suicide then set off a domino effect that led to Minshew changing paths and ultimately becoming WSU’s starter and leading all FBS schools in passing yards per game (367.6). “It makes me extremely grateful,” Minshew said on Friday. “I had a lot of people help me get to where I’m at. Washington State giving me the chance, coach (Mike) Leach believing in me, all those guys letting me step in and lead on short notice. It has been an incredible year. And it’s not done, the ride’s only getting better and I’m excited to see what’s going to happen in this next year.” – Seattle Times