In a manner of speaking, Dan Mozes was one of the 22 best college football players in the country in 2006. In only his second season at center, he was named a consensus All-American. Not bad for a underrecruited kid who was freshman All-America at left guard.
And yet Dan Mozes, who, to be fair, was a little undersized, went undrafted. OK, so college centers aren’t the envy of many, if not most, NFL teams. Then again, Louisville’s Eric Wood and a similar, though not at all superior resume, will be drafted Saturday, possibly in the first round.
The difference? Part rests with the offense. Louisville is a pro-style system, which behooves Wood as it once did quarterback Brian Brohm. Mozes’ offense and the requisite skills didn’t translate as well to the NFL.
It was January 2007. Gruden and his then-Tampa Bay staff were coaching the North squad in preparation of the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. They were putting the players through a simple inside-run period — with scouts and personnel executives from every NFL team looking on — and his quarterback and center could not execute the most fundamental play in football.
“You guys are professionals now!” Gruden recalled railing. “How ’bout getting the [expletive] snap, OK?”
The center was Daniel Mozes, a four-year starter and first-team All-American from West Virginia who won the 2006 Dave Rimington Trophy as the top nation’s top offensive lineman.
Mozes looked at Gruden.
“Coach,” he said. “We were in the shotgun every snap.”
The point was spread offense players weren’t properly prepared for the NFL and Mozes was a prime example why. A center who struggles with under-center snaps isn’t all that different from a spread tight end who can’t block on the line of scrimmage or a quarterback who can’t make a three-step drop.
Just don’t tell Mike Leach.
Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach, in an interview with The Dallas Morning News, was a little less diplomatic when asked about the knocks against his system relative to the NFL.
“You bring up easily the most pitiful NFL cop-out of them all,” Leach said. “How could you possibly look yourself in the mirror and consider yourself an NFL coach and not be able to teach a guy to run back three steps, five steps and seven steps. I can teach a child that.”
The NFL doesn’t want children and certainly isn’t interested in devoting time to the things kids should have already been taught.
Or is it? What was once a problem is slowly becoming a positive.
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