Catching up with ESPN's Laura Rutledge at the NFL Combine

Key notes from Laura Rutledge interview

• It’s so great to see you! This is great. The NFL Combine has a lot of NFL people here, but I love when my college football friends get to crossover in this world. It’s great to see you here.
   
• My brain is scrambled eggs most of the time. It’s a lot to juggle in my career, but I always look at it through the lens of being really grateful. Any time I’m like, “Man, I don’t know if I want to spend three more hours prepping for whatever is next,” it’s very easy to remind myself why I’m so lucky to get to do this. The other thing is that I’m a fan like everybody else is, so as a fan, I love getting to dive into all of this stuff, whether it’s watching games back or old interviews that some of these players did.
   
• The cool thing about the NFL Combine is that it’s finally the intersection of my two worlds. I’ve been in the college world and the NFL world very separately during the football season, but this is where they start to crossover. I find an extreme joy in watching my NFL people fall in love with these college players. I’ll text Dan Orlovsky like, “Have you watched his tape yet? What do you think of Jeremiyah Love?” It’s neat to see them love these guys that I’ve been able to cover for a number of years.
   
• This was a really neat year for Texas A&M, and it still kind of breaks my heart to think about the way it ended. We were at the game vs. Miami, and that was a wind tunnel of a game. The conditions were wild, and it was just a bizarre game. I still feel like A&M was capable of more, and that’s how stacked that team was. We’ll see Cashius Howell and KC Concepcion get drafted high, so you can see the talent that comes from this group. There is some development I think that can happen with Marcel Reed, and things will be better next season. They’ve tasted it, and they were so close. Had A&M advanced past Miami, I think they might have advanced further down the stretch.
   
• It was an amazing year with a ton to build on, and I know A&M fans had been disappointed with how it ended. I get that, but there was so much to be proud of.
   
• The task for Mike Elko is to keep sending a bunch of guys to the NFL Combine. You saw him get extended, and he should be. He is the right leader for the program. These players were talented when they got there, but they also got developed at A&M. That could have been lacking in previous regimes. In the past, they had gotten five-star players, and some of them panned out to have good NFL careers. Myles Garrett is having a great NFL career, but you didn’t see that consistently. This is the opportunity to reload, and they’re built to do that. Guys who might want to go to A&M, they saw them right until the end and saw them in the College Football Playoff. To me, that is one of the best things you can do in recruiting and reloading your roster.
   
• People might say I’m a homer, but I do think, without a doubt, that the strength of the SEC and what these guys are having to go through week in and week out... It is a gauntlet, and I’m not saying the Big Ten is not in some ways. There are teams like Indiana and Ohio State that are the cream of the crop, but in the SEC, look at a team like South Carolina. They struggled at times this year and then gave a great team like A&M all they could handle. It’s such a deep league, and that ultimately factors in some teams not making it. Texas is an example of a team that would probably have had a better record in the Big Ten, but it was their record that prevented them from being in the CFP. I still believe the SEC is the strongest league, and the strength is in the depth of the league. We are going to have to figure out a way for more of these teams to make it there.
   
• I’m sorry for the Michael Taffee cameo. That was my fault. Gig ‘Em.