Rashaun Woods Diary

Rashaun Woods Diary #8 Editor's Note: The two-time All American wide receiver talks about anticpation with the NFL Draft less than a week and a half away. He also details trips he is making to visit NFL teams and his fishing endorsements and second sport career, tournament fishing. Late last week the Pittsburgh Steelers had me come to Pittsburgh. They had top flight facilities and I even had the chance to meet some of the players.

They were in there working out and doing some things. It was a good experience.

The players just keep it very business like. They ask you how you're doing and where you're from. We talk about little things, they really don't turn too much to the sports aspect of it. They just try and make a good impression and then go about their business. It was nice to see most of the coaches and see the facilities. I met Bill Cowher (Steelers head coach). It's almost exactly like the combine. They bring you in and you only end up talking to the head coach for about 15 minutes. He'll ask you about your family background, maybe look at a little film, have you get up at the board and draw out a couple of plays and have you tell what your responsibility is. They ae trying to get a feel for you as a person. I watched a little film with the quarterback coach. We watched tape from a game with the Broncos and maybe one other game. Really, we just met with the head coach, some of the other coaches were out. We didn't work out, so that was one difference from the combine. It was really that they wanted to see how you are as a person.

        When I am watching the film, as I watch the receivers if they do something right or how they are running their route, I kind of put myself in their situation and see if I would do it the same way or if I would do something different. Would the coach want me to do something different? Sometimes I ask that question on a route. They may run it at 14-yards or they may run it at 12-yards. I count the steps and see how they do it. I'm checking out the terminology and how they call their plays. At Oklahoma State we used a number system for pass plays, but pass plays at Pittsburgh are all words. Actually, the formation is a number and their plays are all words. That is something I have never heard of. That's all the kind of stuff you take into account, and realize that I'm going to have to learn all that stuff. I try to take a mental note of all the situations and the kind of plays they call.

        At Oklahoma State we had a lot of situations where depending on how the defense played I would have to switch my route or have a read route. That is pretty much done on just about every college team. We had a lot of that because of how many receivers we would have out on pass plays, and we would have to make those reads based on the coverage the defense gave us. I do think being in the offense at Oklahoma State really helped to prepare me for the NFL. It's more of a pro style offense, more of a move the chain, play action passing, take what the defense give you kind of offense. It's not like a run and gun offense or an offense like Texas Tech that is only going to work in the college game. It's an offense that is universal, a lot of people run it, and if you run it right there is no defense that can stop it. I'm glad I was able to be in this offense and that I was able to learn a lot from the coaches.

        Tomorrow I head out to Detroit to have a meeting with those guys. When you go to these places and you are around a neighborhood in the city, you kind of look around and think what if I was to live here. I know you don't have a choice, but you always wonder what it would be like to live in certain cities. You'd like to be in a city that you want to live in, but you really don't have that choice. Where ever you end up, you really have to make do.

        I'm not superstitious and if I go somewhere and I can't have number 82, that's okay. I'm not going to pay to get it. That's okay, I can wear another number and use that money for fishing lures or something.

        I will fish in some pro tournaments this summer. That is a passion of mine, and I really enjoy fishing. I want to be able to go out and really compete at it. Right now, I'm in the learning phase. I'm just trying to learn from the big boys on how to do it, and I'm having a lot of fun doing it. I do have some time right now. That's real nice for those guys to share the way they do things. If they played football they'd be hall of famers. You see one of these guys that knows exactly what he's doing and you pay attention to that guy.

        As far as teams that might draft me, it's getting worse and worse. I can't tell. A lot of people have asked me that, and instead of narrowing it down, it seems to be getting wider and wider. Right now, I'm just hoping I get picked up. You see those mock drafts and one has me going to St. Louis and I havn't even spoken with St. Louis.-Rashaun Woods