The 23-year-old from Millbrook, Alabama, started two seasons for the Trojans at right guard, but his move to center in his final season cemented his stock as a future pro. At that point, NFL teams began blowing up Sumrall’s phone to discuss the All-Sun Belt First Teamer.
“There was a lot of interest. It’s not really sexy to talk about a mid-round O-Lineman all the time. But he’s one of those guys who declared for the draft, and maybe he was a little bit of an unknown. To be quite honest with you, a year ago nobody was asking me about him.”
“Then in December, January, February, March, my phone was blowing up. It felt like every day somebody was calling about him. You knew there were going to be enough teams that valued his attributes and his intangibles on top of the way he plays that he was going to go to a place maybe a touch higher than originally projected,” Sumrall explained.
Following a career where he started three seasons on Troy’s offensive line, Andrews headed to Mobile to showcase his skills for NFL teams at the Senior Bowl. The Patriots have a long history of drafting Senior Bowlers, including selecting five Senior Bowl alums this year.
Ex-Patriots scout and current Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy also began to sense that NFL teams had Andrews on their radar as the 2022 season progressed. Nagy was attending the Auburn-Penn State matchup this fall when he started to hear scouts discussing Andrews.
“I talked to a couple guys that day that had just been through Troy, and they said, ‘Jim, where do you guys have the center?’ One of the guys I talked to was an over-the-top scout who had already been through there. Usually, at Sun Belt schools, you’ll see area scouts first unless there’s a really high-profile group of five player going into the year.”
“But usually it’s an area scout, and then to get more foot traffic through the school once you have to put a certain level of grade on a guy. So over the top guys, regional scouts, national scouts, and…
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