Interview Transcript: Fresno State QB Tom Brandstater

As time goes on, I'll be rolling more and more of these out. You can always find the audio on NFLDraftbible.com or in the archives for All-Access Football and usually (although not in this case) The Thundering Blurb Football Show - both on Blogtalkradio.com.

I did this interview just prior to Fresno State's Pro Day and actually broke the news in it that Brandstater would not be working out at his Pro Day, which then appeared on Rotoworld. Right place, right time.

So without further ado, here is the interview I ran on All Access football a couple of weeks ago with NFL Draft Prospect and former Fresno State QB Tom Brandstater.

Garda: Welcome to another edition of All Access Football Radio brought to you by NFLDraftbible.com, as well as the fabulous Fantasy Sports Channel and BlogTalkRadio.com.

I am Andrew Garda, your host for the next 15 or so minutes, as we will get our interview on with another in a long line of top prospects.

A guy who, coming into the Combine people were thinking ‘Intriguing prospect, maybe someone who could make some noise.’ Coming out of the Combine, everyone was saying ‘What the heck did we just see?’ Of course I am talking about Fresno State Bulldog quarterback Tom Brandstater. Tom, how are you doing tonight?

Tom Brandstater: I’m doing great. How are you guys doing?

Garda: Doing absolutely fantastic. Big night for you, getting ready for your Pro Day. So I want to thank you for coming on tonight because I know you probably have some butterflies going on to tomorrow.

Absolutely going to be a huge day. Between the Combine and now, have you been hearing a lot from teams? Are there any workouts yet, any dialogue or do you think that’s going to come later on?

Tom Brandstater: Yeah, at this point it’s starting to become, teams are calling and getting ahold of my agent and trying to figure out different meets and stuff like that. So it’s going to be – I’ll be a busy guy for the next month or so before {the Draft} just trying to hit every appointment and trying to talk to all the people who are interested so, I’ll be busy.

And it’s kind of fun, part of the process to get out to different places and see different people and ultimately going for the goal of being on an NFL team.

Garda: So moving backwards a little bit before we move too far forwards, you played both quarterback and defensive back in high school and you were a good enough defensive back to where named to the first team All-District by the Modesto Bee, at the position.

In college however, it was all about the quarterback slot. Which is not to say that you were so good as a D-back that nobody was talking about your quarterback ability because you were directing what was primarily a rushing offense, but you still threw for 1,000 yards as a senior high school QB.

So, clearly you had the talent to do both. What was the thing that made you say ‘hey, I’m focusing on quarterback from here on out’ when you were clearly successful at either position at all. What really did you see that said ‘that’s why I want to do quarterback?’

And what advantage do you have, having played that position, a position that usually gives quarterbacks some headaches.

Tom Brandstater: Right. I was more of a safety in high school. I don’t think I’m physically gifted enough at to play defense in college. So it wasn’t a question at all as I got to college. I did well in high school because I was able to know what was happening before it was going to start.

So it wasn’t because I had sheer athletic ability, the ability to cover and stuff. So I was kinda in the right place at the right time playing defense. And then I was a natural quarterback with the ideal—with the prototypical body at least to play quarterback.

Garda: You like, flipped the script there, because most of the time quarterbacks were like ‘yeah I played a little D-back and now I know what’s in the safety or corner’s head because I was there for a little bit.’

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?