USD Football 1996

I-A]." South Carolina State head coach Willie Jeffries said. "We all have to go through the clearinghouse now. We're hurting ourselves. The division below us, Division II, they can take players that are nonqualifying. They can get those play– ers athletically related aid, and we can't. So we're caught in the middle." There are also those players like Klein who may not want to sit out a year after transferring, or those who may be eligible only for the NAIA because they have changed schools once already. But it's not always the NCAA rules that control the fate of high school prospects. Sometimes players are just overlooked in the recruiting process. They may come from smaller high schools without winning traditions, or even schools that play eight-man foot– ball. Then there are the late bloomers, like Woodall and Mobley and NFL Hall of Famers Gene Upshaw {Texas A&I) and Deacon Jones (South Carolina State). That's how the smaller schools get many of those special players. "In high school," Mobley said, "I played so many positions that I really wasn't trained solely for one position and I never had a chance to excel at one. So I didn't get that many offers [from] Divi– sion I schools, and the ones that were in contact weren't giving me full scholarships. "I [underwent] a dramatic change in college with one specific position coach to help you out and get you fundamentally sound and teach you technique, which is something that I lacked in high school. So coming out [of high school], I was pret– ty raw, and I sort of developed in college." Still, Mobley may not have been the 15th overall pick in the '96 draft if it hadn't been for Woodall. "The best thing to have ever hap– pened to John Mobley was Lee Woodall," Zuckerman said. "Because people saw someone come out of that conference at the same position and become a Pro Bowl player. And so now they go back and they give John Mobley a much better look and they see a guy who was excelling

Think it's impossible to make it big in the NFL after attending a non-Division I-A school? Former Mississippi Valley State receiver Jerry Rice has managed just fine.

"I might have opened doors, just like Jerry Rice might have, just like John Taylor might have, like all those Division II players or small-school players." LEE WOODALL, LINEBACKER, SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS like Lee Woodall was from the same con– ference, and he gets invited to an all– star game." And that's where Mobley shined. "He went to the Blue-Gray and he went to the Senior Bowl, and he respond– ed well in both," said San Francisco 49ers director of player personnel Vinny Cerrato. "He showed that he could play at that level, and he showed his ability in the drills and with the coaching and how he improved each day at the Senior Bowl with the pro coaching. For the

smaller school guys, the bowl games are very important." So is a player's motivation and burn– ing desire to strut his stuff next to the big boys. "I might have opened doors, just like Jerry Rice might have, just like John Taylor might have, like all those Division II players or small-school players," Woodall said. "I can open up a door, but it's up to [John Mobley and others] to walk through it. "What I always say is, no matter what type of player you are, you believe in yourself first before others can believe in you. It's not what school or the name of the school or the division of the school, it's what you do there to make a difference. It's what you do when you get your foot in the door." a Ellen S. Levy is the pro football editor of College & Pro Football Newsweekly, a national publication that covers both college and pro football year-round.

~