The 2014 Kevin Costner film Draft Day is certainly no Citizen Kane, but it does offer a few realistic glimpses into the NFL Draft evaluative process. The very memorable line "how come none of Bo Callahan's teammates attended his birthday party?! I WANT TO KNOW!" might seem like Hollywood embellishment of how far NFL teams go in doing their due diligence.
They don't really get that granular? And dig that deep?
And it makes sense, given that QB is a position where character and personality are just as important as the purely football elements. When you're the quarterback, all aspects gets scrutinized to the nth degree.
Illinois QB Luke Altmyer is arguably the best from the modern era, at the position, in his program's history. He brings a lot to the table, and he looks like a great potential fit for several different teams.
His head coach, Bret Bielema, had special praise for his composure.
Altmyer led Illinois down the field, for a game winning drive that culminated in a walk-off field goal, to give the Illini a Music City Bowl win. Bielema discussed the recordings of the communications between Altmyer and Offensive Coordinator Barry Lunney on that final drive.
"There's some really cool audible audio," Bielema said on a Tuesday media conference call.
"I know you guys (Illini media corps) have listened to it with coach Lunney. I give Pat Pearson (Illinois Football Director of Branding and Creative Media) all the credit in the world.
"He's going into that game, he's like 'Coach, can we record this and talk about, you know, just the interaction between Barry and Luke on the field?' There's actually NFL teams that have asked me about that audio, because it just shows the trust that coach Lunney had in Luke.
"And I think that was the best culmination of a player that I just mutually respect, not just in how he plays, but how he manages the game, as you could ever find, was Luke Altmyer in that Tennessee game.
This article originally appeared on Draft Wire: NFL teams interested in audio from Altmyer's bowl game winning drive