Great pick best player left on the board. Can't wait to see him at 6-5 and 285 lined up with Judon and Barmore.
he's one i saw a predraft sitdown of a few weeks ago and thought, "i like this kid." hope we get the story on his draft reaction. maybe he was just overwhelmed.
I think he was pissed off at dropping to the 2nd round. And it was like, finally. It was a very human reaction imho. He’ll have a nice big chip on his shoulder now which is great! No better place to come to.
Similar size to Willie. New Elephant back?
For the first two rounds, Bill found himself looking at the best player on the board at that time. That’s a nice place to be. Players who should have been taken earlier. We have a very good defense building here, the front 7 and the backfield.
“What really sticks out is the fact that he was a guy that valued self-improvement,” Knight said. “I never had to push him to get better at this or get better at that. He’s going to ask the right type of questions, and he improved on his own. So that made him pretty easy to coach.”
White is the top draft candidate from Tech in the draft, which begins Thursday with the first round, continues Friday with the second and third rounds and concludes Saturday with the fourth through seventh rounds.
Along with White, linebackers Ayinde Eley and Charlie Thomas, wide receivers E.J. Jenkins and Malachi Carter, running back Hassan Hall and offensive lineman William Lay all took part in Tech’s Pro Day on March 16 in front of NFL coaches and scouts. After White, Pro Football Network’s Tony Pauline projected Eley, Thomas, Jenkins, Carter and Hall as likely to sign as undrafted free agents. It’s conceivable one or more could get selected in a late round. Jenkins, who auditioned as a tight end, had an impressive Pro Day workout that helped him net pre-draft visits with the Colts and Ravens.
As for White, Knight holds but the loftiest hopes for his career.
“He’s barely scratching the surface,” Knight said. “If he ends up with a coach that knows what they’re doing and he respects, he’s going to take off.”
While his physical abilities were made clear at the NFL draft combine – he broad jumped 9′9″ and had a 34-inch vertical leap and later ran the 40-yard dash in the 4.7-second range at Tech’s Pro Day, all superior scores for a player 6-foot-5 and 285 pounds – his learning aptitude and drive could be separators.
Knight stopped being bothered by White not taking notes in spring practice in 2022, after Knight had just become the defensive ends coach. At one practice when the ends were short in number, Knight switched White from the field-side end to the rush end, which he hadn’t played previously.
White proceeded to play the position without any mistakes of alignment or assignment. Knight said he realized “that’s the reason he’s asking those 17,000 questions – that’s how he learns. And he takes it and applies it from there. I think sitting and writing is distracting to him.”
Looks like White is BB's annual obligatory pick without any prior contact.
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