B/R Behind the Scenes: Inside Look at the Elite 11 'War Room'
MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — It's 11 p.m. on the first day of the Elite 11 Finals and Trent Dilfer and the Elite 11 coaching staff are huddled inside a small conference room on the second floor of the Belamar Hotel.
He sits at the end of the table with a handful of his trusted staff members, and they are all staring at a dry-erase board that will prove to be their ultimate battleground over the next 48 hours.
On that board are magnetic placards with 24 names—one for each of the finalists. The first 11 are gold, and the rest are black. Gold signifies that those players would earn a coveted Elite 11 slot, while the names listed in black are on the outside looking in.
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The names on the magnets will be moved, dissected and put through the ringer with his staff as the Elite 11 Finals competition—which took place June 3-5—plays out.
The stakes are high for Dilfer and the staff to identify the top 12 players of this group for many reasons.
Perhaps at the top of that list is the camp's reputation. Among the camp's alums include this year's top overall NFL draft pick and current Rams passer, Jared Goff, current Clemson All-American Deshaun Watson, Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston and current Colts star Andrew Luck to name a few.
As a bonus for the campers in attendance at this year's finals event, Watson—along with California's Davis Webb, Notre Dame's DeShone Kizer and USC's Max Browne—was on hand for the event as a college counselor.
Additionally, the event's new format means the top 12 earn a trip to The Opening—which is an invite-only showcase that pits the nation's top talent against one another at Nike's headquarters—in July.
Dilfer spoke on that challenge following the competition's final event Sunday.
"It's the best group of passers we've ever had," he told Bleacher Report. "It's not even close because of their command of the football, in general. It speaks volumes to their high school coaches and the programs they come from and the people they work with. It's a gifted group for sure."
Just how did Dilfer and his staff select the finalists who will be on display at The Opening?
Bleacher Report was granted access inside the war room for all three days after on-field activities in the Elite 11 Finals competition were completed.
The three late-night-into-early-morning sessions featured intense debates and heavy deliberations that led to the selection of the 2016 Elite 11 class.
While the Elite 11 coaching staff is equipped with more than 20 volunteer coaches, only five of its members were present for selection meetings. They are:
- Joey Roberts: Elite 11 Director of Scouting
- Trent Dilfer: Elite 11 Head Coach
- Yogi Roth: Elite 11 Host and Director of Elite 11 Documentary
- Brian Stumpf: Elite 11 President
- Matt James: Nike Director of Grassroots Football
Rounding out the six-man decision-making staff was B/R college football analyst Michael Felder.
Dilfer sits at the head of the table, which is a fitting spot considering he's the leading voice to initiate each discussion.
James and Stumpf have been involved with Student Sports for more than 17 years. Dilfer leans on their experience and opinions when seeking the temperature of his analysis among the rest of the room.
Felder brings a refreshing opinion outside of the Elite 11 bubble that is valued since he's thoroughly examined all of the prospects in attendance.
Roberts and Roth offer different perspectives.
Roberts will routinely play devil's advocate and prompt further discussion on topics that seem to have already reached consensus otherwise. However, he backs up his opinions with valid metrics.
While Roth doesn't speak with the frequency of the others in the room, his energetic tone adds thoughts on aspects such as the mental elements of playing quarterback and gauging "dude qualities"—his term for measuring a quarterback's "it" factor.
Dilfer opens the discussion late Friday evening to go over the criteria on which the coaches will base their evaluations.
Three elements are found in their formula. Fifty percent of each individual prospect's grade will be based on their film and performance during their junior year. Twenty-five percent comes from their physical traits, and the remaining 25 percent comes from in-person evaluations—whether it be Elite 11 regionals or their performances during the weekend's competition itself.
They also dug deep to identify details such as level of competition in the film component, body type and hand size in their "physical trait" analysis and how their peers view them in the in-person analysis section.
Additionally, after the last regional in Seattle in late May, the Elite 11 staff created its own metric to rate the quarterbacks from No. 1 to No. 24 entering the Elite 11 Finals.
Included in their scores were data from tests that measured their athleticism, agility, arm strength and cognitive abilities.
The lower a prospect's number rating, the better. Case in point, Stanford pledge and 4-star passer Davis Mills entered the event with a score of seven—which landed him atop the Elite 11 board coming into the weekend.
Early in his opening remarks, Dilfer cautioned the staff to stick with the formula after Day 1.
"No matter how unimpressive they were today, it can't be more than 25 percent of what got them there in the beginning," the ESPN analyst said. "Because we're going to set a board tonight, and there will be massive movement. We can't make knee-jerk reactions based off one day in a driving-range environment."
The "driving range" comment signified that the staff viewed Friday as a warm-up day.
Still, as the room begins to survey what happened on the opening day, the itch to make moves is tempting based on the players who looked good and those who didn't.
A handful of minor shifts—no more than three spots up or down—are made among the Top 11. But the biggest debate at the end of the first evening centered on whether Alabama pledge Tua Tagovailoa did enough to enter the final 11 after an impressive first day.
Roberts points to their metric and the amount of work put into it as to why the board should remain the same with Tagovailoa on the outskirts of the promised land.
However, James is on the opposite side of the line.
"No one thought [Tagovailoa] could come in here and do what we saw him do today under center," James said. "We had a lot of off-platform stuff and other things, and none of us expected him to keep his discipline in those settings, but he did. After I saw him do what he did today, I want to go back and change some things."
The rest of the room agrees with him.
Tagovailoa is the only new face to crack the Elite 11 standings after Day 1.
It's 11:37 p.m. on Saturday evening when everyone settles into the second war-room session.
Overall, Dilfer and the Elite 11 staff are pleased with the group as a whole and how it handled a long and arduous day that began at 5:30 a.m.
"Sometimes you get so deep in X's and O's, you forget that this can be like asking people to learn the 'Mandarin for dummies' in a day. We're asking them to do that and be able to read it, rehearse it, know it and own it," Dilfer said. "I know we ask too much of them, but we also find out a lot about them, and they find out a lot about themselves because we are asking them to do an impossible. It's pretty cool that they continue to exceed our expectations every year."
On and off the field, this was essentially a separation day.
Tagovailoa and 3-star LSU commit Myles Brennan—who finished at the top of the standings for the pro-day workout—were the day's biggest winners from the action on the field.
Away from it, Mills, 5-star Clemson commit Hunter Johnson and 5-star Michigan pledge Dylan McCaffrey were the names buzzing among coaches and peers alike.
In fact, when the staff asked all quarterbacks in attendance which passer they would choose to start a program with other than themselves, that trio accounted for 17 of the 24 votes. Seven other quarterbacks received one vote apiece.
Roberts recalls an anecdote from earlier in the interview session of the day with McCaffrey—one that brought instant laughter to the room.
"On the field and how [Dylan] conducts himself, I think that's why the other quarterbacks see him as an alpha," Roberts, also an ESPN NFL associate scout, said. "He's a stickler on details. We asked him about his family and growing up with athletes everywhere. We asked him why he played QB, and his answer was, 'Someone had to throw them the ball!'"
Two days of on-field work and a jam-packed day filled with workouts and interviews have provided them with enough ammo to make some changes to the board.
"I think there's a couple [in the first 11] for sure [who could move down]," Stumpf said.
James agrees.
Dilfer quickly moves to identify the top of the board so the discussion can refocus on the players fighting for an invite.
"These dudes aren't going anywhere unless something massive happens," Dilfer said as he sets up the top five.
Furthermore, he acknowledges that there's little drop-off from the guys rated in the middle of the board.
"I could see guys listed from 12 through 20 end up being just as successful as one through eight long term. This is the year that the ceiling guys aren't going to make it to The Opening, but we know if those guys get into a great situation where they redshirt and can learn behind a starter, mature a little bit and get to know himself better, he can win a national championship and be a first-round pick," Dilfer said.
Stumpf agrees, noting the examples of Kizer and Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett as players who didn't make the Elite 11 Finals yet have still found success on the college level.
The discussion shifts to Tagovailoa's day—which had the entire room gushing about his performance.
Stumpf notes that there won't be an MVP named in this year's competition until The Opening. But if there were one for the weekend, the room was clear in its thought process.
"He's No. 1," Dilfer said.
Brennan is the next name brought up, as Stumpf reads the ratings where different members in the room had him coming into the event.
"Somebody had him at 16. Somebody had him at 24. Somebody had him at 13. Somebody had him at 15," Stumpf rattles off.
Dilfer admits he was one of the skeptics. His biggest believer throughout the process was James, something Roberts is quick to note.
"There were a few things about Myles," James said. "The first thing I love is his film. If you watch his film and you watch him throw the ball, he has a great base and knows how to finish his throws. He can make all of the throws. There was something about him that day [at the New Orleans regional] and on film that I really liked. I thought when you got him in this environment, we'd feel the same way."
For the final spot, the group tosses around three names before opting for 4-star Texas pledge Sam Ehlinger with the caveat that Sunday would be the ultimate barometer for him and the two left on the outside looking in.
"Yesterday was driving range. Today was Topgolf. Tomorrow is going to be 16, 17 and 18 at Augusta National," James surmises. "That's what is going to separate the pack."
Even though the staff had been working on finding the top 11, Stumpf was quick to note that the field will actually include 12 quarterbacks as the final war room took place Sunday evening.
Similar to college football conferences such as the Big Ten and Big 12, the Elite 11 is keeping its name due to tradition and brand recognition.
"At The Opening, we're going to have the Elite 11 MVP, plus the Elite 11 quarterbacks," Stumpf said. "We'll define that when we get up there and finish that competition. There will be an Elite 11 MVP named and the rest of the Elite 11 quarterbacks. We had 11 on the board. We were working with that through the week. Now, we will add the 12th man who will complete the group."
With the criteria laid out, the staff set out to crown the crop of passers headed to Oregon, and there were a handful of interesting debates regarding guys comfortably in the top 12.
For instance, Tagovailoa vaulted into the discussion for the top overall spot. The staff settled on him right behind Mills at No. 2.
"I think Tua at No. 2 is the right call. It's his reward for being this week's MVP," Dilfer said.
Mills, 4-star Jack Sears, 4-star Oklahoma commit Chris Robison, 4-star Georgia pledge Jake Fromm and 4-star Penn State commit Sean Clifford all took turns under the staff's microscope. Each of them survived mainly because their efforts over the weekend were mostly solid.
Of that group, Robison garnered the most praise for a sequence in his workout Dilfer observed while he was on the sideline grabbing a snack and a cup of Gatorade.
"[Robison] was having a hard time with the guys around him. They dialed 'sluggo,' and Chris drops a freaking dime and the [receiver] drops it. I wanted to see how he would react. [Robison] immediately goes to the guy and said, 'Hey man, that's alright, shake it off. We'll get the next play.' He goes to him the next play, and he hits him perfectly. Chris told him, 'Now, you're back!' I was like, that's what we are looking for!"
Upon hearing that nugget, Roth interjects.
"He's definitely got the dude qualities."
The staff pondered whether it was more impressed with 4-star Ohio State pledge Tate Martell's stellar prep record and competitive demeanor or McCaffrey's intangible qualities and the way he naturally demanded the respect and admiration of his peers.
Felder pointed out that the staff had already praised McCaffrey's skills in that regard a day earlier, which led to an interesting debate around the room about potential versus production with the group as a whole.
Still, neither player was in danger of missing out on an invite to Oregon, but the staff's banter was perhaps a sign of things to come at The Opening.
With Bleacher Report officially announcing the finalists a day later, the staff wanted to make sure it notified each prospect on Sunday evening where they stood.
However, two prospects—Brennan and Johnson—learned their status after the staff invited them into the war room.
Johnson was first up.
Dilfer led the meeting by notifying Johnson he tallied the most votes from his peers when the question about starting a program with one member of the group was posed. That set the stage for him to officially hand out the first invite to The Opening.
"This group thinks very highly of you not only as a player, but as a person too," Dilfer told Johnson. "We feel equally as high about you. So we're here to invite you to The Opening and welcome you to the Elite 11!"
An overjoyed and relieved Johnson thanked the staff and exited with a smile bright enough to illuminate the otherwise gloomy skies.
Brennan's meeting was up next, and Dilfer wanted the tone to be different. His plan was to grill Brennan and make him sweat a little bit.
When the lanky Mississippi native walked in, Dilfer asked him about his performance that day.
"I feel like I did well. I had a couple of bad throws, but that's going to happen," Brennan responded.
That prompted Dilfer to bring up film of an interception he tossed in his seven-on-seven workout.
Dilfer explains the read he made and the steps he should've taken to find an open receiver in the flats. Brennan nervously agrees.
After moments of awkward silence in the room, the ice is finally broken.
"Alright, well, you promised us you would make the 11…and you did!" Dilfer shouted. "I couldn't do it anymore. I tried, but I couldn't hold it."
Brennan excitedly shakes hands and thanks everyone in the room, media and film crew included, before leaving.
Tagovailoa and Brennan weren't the only big winners of the weekend. The staff was giddy over the performance of 3-star Syracuse commit Tommy Devito—who was the lowest-rated passer coming into the finals.
A day earlier, Devito finished that session on the outside looking in, with Dilfer predicting he'd find his way into the top 12 if he looked good on Sunday.
"I love [Devito's] 10 ¼[-inch] hands. He's a thick-jointed kid. He's going to be big and powerful. He's not going to lose any juice as he gets big and powerful," Dilfer said. "He's got supreme confidence. In his meetings, me and Dr. [Michael] Gervais were taking notes, and we wrote the same thing on him. 'Decisive!!!' He has conviction. He's unwavering. Those dudes make it."
That left one slot that appeared to be Ehlinger's, at least according to the consensus of the room.
A surprised Roberts brings up another player who had been discussed extensively among the middle group of prospects fighting for one of the last spots.
Although Dilfer disagrees with Roberts' assessment, he brings up film of Sunday's workout on both players for the room to break down and discuss.
James points out Ehlinger's strength as a runner and how that is neutralized in this event.
"[Ehlinger has] worked a ton on improving as a passer," James explained. "The other thing that kid doesn't get a lot of credit in this thing is his ability to run the football. That's probably the best part of his game. I almost feel in seeing him play at the regional, seeing him with live bullets against Allen in the state championship. I feel like he plays better when it's live bullets."
Dilfer, with the film session almost over, interjects.
"He's dealing right now, though!"
After watching the other player's film, Dilfer is even more convinced his initial instinct was right.
"Do we still have an argument after watching the film of both [players]?"
Roberts, sensing his campaign losing support in the room, concedes.
"[They are] comparable in a sense, but it's fine. It's OK," he said.
With that, the 2016 Elite 11 class was set.
"So we got our 12 going to Oregon and competing for the MVP at The Opening," Dilfer said. "Davis Mills has been No. 1 every day, but I think we all agree that the gap has closed. He came in with a pretty substantial lead and held serve early on. He had a really good weekend, so there's nothing he did poorly. I think there are some great whites that are hunting him down to say the least. It should be really interesting."
Dilfer is quick to point out that the 12 guys who didn't get invited will still be a part of the Elite 11 fraternity.
He and the staff also reiterated that this group has a number of guys who won't be making the trip to The Opening but have a great chance to outperform those headed to Nike's world headquarters at the next level.
Even though the process was grueling at times, he's pleased with the time, effort and dedication that his staff put in after a marathon trek around the country searching for the nation's top arms in the 2017 cycle.
As tough as identifying the guys who earned a spot in the Elite 11 class was, making the call to those who didn't made that feat appear easy by comparison.
Still, ever the optimist and philosopher, Dilfer delivers the bad news with advice and a different kind of invitation to the players whose journey through the Elite 11 process has come to an end.
"Every year, when I call the guys to tell them they didn't make it, I tell them, 'Please prove me wrong. Please call me and tell me how wrong I was when you win the Heisman or when you are drafted or win a Super Bowl.' I think we have some guys in this class that will do that."
Sanjay Kirpalani is a National Recruiting Analyst for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained firsthand and all recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.
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