How the Rams got a complete steal in UDFA safety Brian Randolph

Agamemnon wrote:

Brian Randolph/S/Tennessee

from off the net

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alyoshamucci

I have years of weird tape of this kid. I thought he was dropped out, but he apparently made it back for a huge pro day …

If you can believe it (and I friggin can’t) besides running a 4.45 and measuring well in agility and short burst … he put up … wait for it … 31 reps. At 6-1 204. I think one season I saw him he was playing at 220 … and up at LB and dropping back … the previous season he was full FS.

I don’t know .. he was all over. In fact he looked different each year, but he was #37 Randolph each year. And I had him marked.

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from: http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2016-nfl-mock-drafts-profiles-video-clips-highlights-steelers-analysis-breakdowns-news/2016/4/28/11403566/the-20-nfl-draft-prospects-who-caught-my-eye-this-2016-draft-season:

If you’ve made it this far, you probably have no clue who this guy is. That’s fine because neither did I until someone I follow on twitter brought up what he did at the pro day. 31 reps on the bench and all of a sudden I found myself scrambling to find results from his pro day and to my delight I saw a 4.40 40 yard dash ranging as high as a 4.50 and a 3 cone drill under 7.00.

Now of course my first question was did he play like that on film and sure enough I saw a play against Alabama (you’ll see it in the video below) where he’s playing single high coverage and not only does Jacob Coker underthrow it on purpose to avoid getting picked off, this guy explodes to the ball and showed off some of the greatest closing speed I’ve seen from a safety in coverage in this draft class. Range is another word for it too.

Look out for Brian Randolph in the future because he’s going to make plays on special teams early that’ll get him noticed and don’t be surprised if you see him playing on defense and seeing him playing well.

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BRIAN RANDOLPH
Safety, 5’11

link: http://allfortennessee.com/2016/04/25/tennessee-football-top-10-vols-prospects-for-the-2016-nfl-draft/11/

This is the one player from the 2015 Tennessee football team who is a sure thing with his floor and has a ridiculously high ceiling. Brian Randolph was at Tennessee for five years, missing one year due to injury and starting every game in the other four years.

Randolph also played in three different defensive systems, and he emerged as a leader for Butch Jones’s teams along with being a consistently reliable player at safety. As far as his floor, Randolph may not be a star in the NFL, but he will definitely be a reliable player at safety for whomever takes him.

Then there’s his ceiling.

At his pro day, Randolph appeared to turn heads of NFL Scouts everywhere, and it helped his draft stock shoot up. If it was just his pro day, the safety would be much lower on this list. But the pro day raised the eyebrows of how amazing his potential is.

When you have a guy who has the chance to be great but will definitely be solid, he is certainly worthy of being taken in one of the first three rounds of the NFL Draft. Whether or not that happens remains to be up for debate.

Although many experts do not even have Randolph near the top of Tennessee prospects, his NFL Draft workouts appear to make him the most likely player to be taken from the Vols in this year’s draft. And that potential is what puts him at the top of this list.

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http://www.sbnation.com/nfl-mock-draft/2015/7/30/9044811/2016-nfl-draft-sec-east-florida-missouri-kentucky

Brian Randolph, S (senior): He’s a smart player with a history of injuries who might be a tad too small (6’0, 208 pounds) and a tad too slow for the NFL, but could be a really good fit in the right scheme as a mid- to late-round draft pick. He finished in the top 15 for team tackles in 2012 despite tearing his ACL in the third game of the season. He finished with 75 and 88 tackles the last two seasons and six interceptions over that span.

i just fell in love. and his name is brian randolph.

i’m really going to be rooting for this kid.

wow. team leader. smart. i read somewhere that he got a degree in management and spent his fifth year as a graduate student. all-academic. but he’s also got a goofy side. a little bit of a clown but in a good way.

learned three different schemes in his time at tennessee.

the one negative is the acl tear he had his sophomore year but has played three full seasons since then. he sounds exactly like what this secondary needs.

http://www.knoxnews.com/sports/vols/football/brian-randolph-will-leave-void-at-safety-locker-room-for-vols-2814959f-612b-1b17-e053-0100007f0588-363867001.html

Brian Randolph will leave void at safety, locker room for Vols

By Dustin Dopirak of the Knoxville News Sentinel

TAMPA, Fla. — Brian Randolph was surrounded by media members during a group interview late in the season when Kendal Vickers signaled to Randolph from behind them.

“I have a question,” the Tennessee defensive tackle said to the senior safety. “Who’s the strongest person in the weight room?”

If the 6-foot, 200-pound Randolph wanted to be honest and accurate, he could’ve said it was Vickers, a 6-3, 286-pound converted defensive end who reportedly can squat 710 pounds.

But accuracy isn’t funny. Randolph, who doubles as a steady captain and a sly court jester for Tennessee, will never choose accuracy when deadpanned fake bravado is an option.

“I’m the strongest person in the weight room,” Randolph said. “You oughta see my bench. I get 30 (reps) on 225 (pounds.) Stronger than Vick, a D-lineman. I take great pride in that. … They call me Hercules.”

Nothing he said was true, of course. Not even close. But Randolph never let on. He never laughed, smiled or so much as changed his facial expression even as the press around him cracked up.

That’s Randolph’s schtick. He uses sharp, dry wit to come up with preposterous, self aggrandizing statements he can stay with a straight face. Usually, that involves him declaring his team superlatives.

“I’m the fastest, the strongest, the best looking,” said Randolph, who will play his final collegiate game Friday (TV: ESPN2, noon) after four years as a starter when the Vols (8-4) meet No. 12 Northwestern (10-2) in the Outback Bowl at Raymond James Stadium.

He was especially entertaining Sunday when the Outback Bowl held its bowling outing for the two teams.

Randolph told the media after practice earlier that day that he was the best bowler on the team and had a technique “no one can grasp.” He also told the media that in golf, he’s “The next Tiger Woods.”

The technique, it turned out, involved him lifting the ball over his head, running toward the pins, and falling over right in front of the line while pushing the ball forward in a motion similar to a basketball bounce pass.

He actually managed to bowl a respectable 118 that way.

“I knew Brian had done that for a while,” senior left tackle Kyler Kerbyson said. “We were in a bowling class together freshman year. … He did it in class and I’m pretty sure he got an A.”

The Vols will remember Randolph’s antics and wise cracks when he moves on, but they will also remember those as a means to an end. He kept the atmosphere light, and used that to connect with younger players so they could learn from his Football IQ and grit.

“Randolph is a crazy dude,” junior linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin said. “I remember when I came here my freshman year, he told me, ‘the longer you stay here, the crazier you’re going to get.’ I can tell it happened to him. He got crazier every year. … But on the field he’s more calm. He gets everyone settled down. He’s real smart. I guess he just decides to let loose sometimes.”

‘voice of reason’

Randolph’s most outward displays of his personality are manifestations of soft rebellion.

His parents, Mark and Lisa Randolph, required their sons to walk a tight line, put academics first, stay out of trouble and generally not do anything to attract unwanted attention. Brian’s older brother, Justin, a former walk-on at Georgia Tech, walked that line dutifully.

Brian, though, occasionally tests the boundaries. His dreadlocked hair with its multi-colored braids, which he said are just the contributions of girls who like to play with his hair, would not have been allowed in the Randolph household. The only reason it doesn’t cause more of a stir when he goes home, his high school football coach said, is because his mother is more opposed to tattoos and piercings.

“His brother is the more serious type,” said Derek Cook, who coached the brothers at Kell High School in Marietta, Ga. “He was always the guy with the calm voice, the voice of reason. Brian you had to pull back a little bit. He was the younger brother, a little more mischievous and fun.”

But Brian didn’t violate his parents’ core guidelines and realized that there were some lines not to be crossed.

“He was never in trouble in high school,” Cook said. “He was never the class clown. He knew when to pull the trigger and when to act like a fool and when not to.”

Two places he didn’t were classroom, where he was a 4.0 student, and the football field, where he was a three-time All-State pick and the 2010 Georgia Gatorade Player of the Year.

Randolph was revered as a high schooler in part because of raw talent. At that level, he could do anything, rushing for 1,068 yards and 16 touchdowns, catching 17 passes for 414 yards and recording 162 tackles and four interceptions as a senior. He was a bone-crushing hitter as a safety and nearly unstoppable with the ball in his hands.

But he also had a high Football IQ, understanding how to line up his teammates, and he set the team’s standard for work ethic.

“He never finished second in a sprint,” Cook said. “Never. He never let anybody beat him at anything.”

And he wouldn’t let anything keep him off the field.

Randolph tore the labrum in his shoulder in his junior year, Cook said, because of the wear and tear he got from all of the blows he delivered as a safety. However, he opted to delay surgery until after the season and played through it. Every time Randolph raised his arm his shoulder popped out of place, and he had to have it put back before he could re-enter the game.

But Randolph not only played through that, he practiced through it.

“That’s not something you see a lot in this generation,” Cook said. “A lot of guys if they’re hurt will spend all day hiding in the training room. Brian was the exact opposite. He wouldn’t even talk to the trainer because he might find out he couldn’t play. We actually had to hide Brian’s pads one time to keep him from practicing, because if you didn’t, he’d put them on and sneak back in there.”

Problem Solver

In his five years at Tennessee, Randolph has convinced younger players to follow him for the same reasons.

He has always been productive, going back to his freshman year in 2011 when he was named an SEC All-Freshman pick and a Freshman All-American by multiple publications. He sat out most of his sophomore season after tearing his ACL, but has started 35 of the Vols’ 37 games since.

Randolph heads into Friday’s game with 307 tackles including 6.5 for loss, seven interceptions and 20 pass deflections in his career. He has 67 tackles this season, and his pass break-up at the end of the 38-31 win over Georgia clinched Tennessee’s most important victory of the season.

After the Vols missed bowl games in each of his first three seasons in the program and surrendered 35.7 points per game in 2012, the year he lost to injury, Randolph has helped make Tennessee’s defense steady if not dominant. They finished the regular season ranked sixth in the hyper-competitive SEC in scoring defense, allowing 21.2 points per game, and eighth in total defense, allowing 370.4 yards per game.

“He means so much to our defense,” defensive coordinator John Jancek said. “He makes so many checks. He solves so many problems for us. … He just does a fantastic job back there.”

Said Tennessee coach Butch Jones: “He’s been one of those seniors that’s really played his best football, which has been very stable for us. He’s provided stability for us, not just in our back end, but in our football program.”

Because, as he did at Kell, Randolph has set a standard for the young defensive backs. Like the rest of the defensive backfield, he fell victim to breakdowns in coverage and tackling early in the season, but the Vols have generally been able to rely on him to know where he is supposed to be on every play and to also counsel his teammates.

“He’s very, very smart and not many people realize that,” Kerbyson said. “… He’s a very smart individual, and that helps him in the back end and it helps him coach the younger guys too and let them know what they need to do. On Fridays, the DB’s have tests, they’re all coming up to Brian asking him questions. He can help them in that aspect and he can keep it light in the room being his funny self and doing his little antics.”

Randolph’s humor and antics carved him his own niche in Tennessee’s leadership next to the more boisterous Curt Maggitt, the older brotherly Kerbyson and quarterback Joshua Dobbs, the offense’s by-the-book CEO.

With his departure, they lose a player who could make them all better, even while constantly reminding them that he is the best at everything.

he seems like a good personality too. fans will love him. will give an entertaining interview i think.

Always hope for the best for a Vol.