Proof of that can be found right here in Philadelphia, where Villanova's Brian Westbrook is the team's star running back and one of eight players from a non-Division I school that finished last season on the Eagles' roster.
"That's a big project for us," Eagles general manager Tom Heckert said last week as the team prepared for the start of tomorrow's draft. "There are a bunch of guys this year from Division I-AA or II schools, and we start double-checking all those guys. You look at some guy who rushed for 1,900 yards at a small school, and if we had a [scout] give him a late-round or free-agent grade, we'll have a couple of other guys look at him to see if maybe he is draftable."
Heckert said a lot of time in the final month before the draft is spent looking at small-school players because the Eagles already have their boards set on the big-school guys. What the general manager and the Eagles' scouts want to see is domination.
"The smaller-school guys, they better dominate and be really good against the guys at their level," Heckert said. "Really, the tape is all that matters, and they have to be dominating."
That's what the Eagles saw from Westbrook, who was the first non-Division I player taken by the team during coach Andy Reid's tenure. Heckert said there was no question that Westbrook could play at the next level, which is why they took him in the third round.
"People talked about his size, but it didn't matter to us," Heckert said. "He wasn't like a midget and he was so productive that we thought for sure he'd make it."
Since the Westbrook selection, the Eagles took seven more non-Division I players, including McNeese State's Bryan Smith, North Dakota State's Joe Mays, and Wheaton College's Andy Studebaker last year. Smith and Mays were from BCS Subdivision schools (formerly I-AA), and Studebaker, who is now with the Kansas City Chiefs, played for a Division III school.
Heckert said it could be difficult to evaluate the small-school players.
