The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Will Allen: Letter from Mobile
01.26.2006 | Football
Will Allen checks in from Mobile, Ala., the site of this Saturday's Senior Bowl, which will air at 3 p.m. on ESPN.
Hey Longhorn fans,
I'm in Mobile, Ala., for the Senior Bowl. I had only driven through here before going to Florida, but it's pretty amazing, because a lot of the hurricane damage from Katrina is still here. You see signs and trees snapped in half still, houses are uprooted, and it's a pretty amazing sight. We're hundreds of miles from where Katrina hit, and there's still so much damage. You see the commercials and see the signs for Katrina relief programs, and it just makes it hit home when you actually visit it and see the devastation.
With the hotel we're in, they still have tons of construction. A lot of the rooms from the 20th floor and up still have the windows blown out of them. The stairwell had a triple-pained window that went up 24 flights of just straight glass, and it shattered the whole way down. When you walk up the stairwell, it's boarded up, but it's just open air. There's still a lot of construction, and we wake up every morning about 8:00 to the sound of jackhammers.
As far as the activities, we haven't done a lot so far. There are probably going to be a few tomorrow, but it's been mostly business. We got here on Sunday and registered. Then we went to the convention center and took tests for about three hours for various teams. They quiz you for your IQ and ask questions about your personality and football. Then we came back to the hotel and met with a few teams -- whoever is interested in you and has a need at your position. They come up and find you throughout the week, and they tend to leave your nights open from about 6 p.m. to whenever you go to sleep and you get phone calls every couple of hours from a different team asking you to meet with them. You talk with them and meet their personnel, and that has taken up a lot of the spare time on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
The conversations I've had have gone well, but it's hard to really take anything away from them, because they're just questioning everybody. They try to question as many guys as they can so they don't have to do it at the combine. I'd say I probably spoke to about 15 teams, and their personnel guys really haven't had a chance to watch film on you yet. They don't know a whole lot about you, so it's just more of a meet-and-greet, get-to-know-each-other deal more than anything.
It's definitely a business atmosphere. There are scouts that flew straight from Hawaii and the Hula Bowl. I think they said there was an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 scouts in the stands for one of the practices. With the sense of business, you don't have that same camaraderie, and your teammates are the ones you're competing with at the same time. It's an awkward feeling, for sure.
Our coaches are all about the game, but in all reality, it's practice where you're making an impact with the scouts because that's where they're on the field next to you. Most of the scouts are gone now, and every team has a representative here to watch the game, but that's not what they want to see. They want to see one-on-one drills in practice. So from a player's standpoint, that's where you're excited to go out and it makes practice fun and competitive for you. In the same sense, though, we came here to win, and that's the first message the 49ers staff got across to us. That's what our common goal is, so we're ready to play and excited for Saturday.
We had practice in shells on Monday, then full pads on Tuesday and Wednesday, and today, it was comparable to a Thursday practice during the season, but a little more physical. That was our final practice, and tomorrow, we have a picture day at the stadium, and we'll walk through a few special teams drills, and that's about it.
The practices have been different with players around you that you don't know. The last couple of days, we started to come together and start to get a feel for each other. It's different, too, because a lot of the techniques are basically the same, but then again, the techniques we learned at Texas are a little different just because of the style of play. We didn't run a pro-style offense other than some route concepts. With running the football and pass protection, we did a few things differently with Vince back there.
I've definitely learned a few new things this week and found some new drills and some weaknesses to improve on. The level of competition you're going against is pretty unbelievable. They're top-notch guys, and it makes it a lot of fun. It's like playing a top five team for every rep.
Guys that I've come here with and I'm decent friends with now are Ryan Cook from New Mexico and Mark Setterstrom from Minnesota, just because we're working out together in Atlanta in an offseason combine training program. I'm rooming with Ryan, and it's great to see all of us doing pretty well here, so it's been fun.
When I get done here, I have a busy next couple of months. I got through with the Rose Bowl, and that following Sunday, I flew to Atlanta and checked into an extended stay hotel, and that's where I've been training. It's a neat setup just north of Atlanta in Duluth, and there are probably five or six offensive linemen training with me. It's been a good experience. I didn't know how much I would like it at first. I thought I might just be there for a couple of weeks and come back to Texas, but I'm actually going to go back this Sunday for a couple more weeks.
From there, I'll come back to Texas, and I'm getting married on March 4. I'm coming back a week and a half before the wedding and get my feet on the ground and make sure everything is in line. I'll keep working out and stay in shape and get ready for Pro Day. Then that following week, I go on my honeymoon from March 25th until April 1st, so the next couple of months will be packed for me.
Hope everyone has a chance to see me, J-Scott (Jonathan Scott) and Cedric (Griffin) play on Saturday. It's an exciting new opportunity for all of us, but we'll always be Longhorns.
Hook 'em
Will
