Randy Gregory has had an interesting path to the 2015 NFL Draft. He was not highly sought after for Division I college football at first, as he began his collegiate career at Arizona Western College, the Matadors. It was at this public community college in Yuma, Arizona that has about 348 on campus residents. He had 82 tackles and 9 sacks during his Freshman season, but missed the 2012 season with a broken leg. Despite the leg injury he had committed originally to Purdue University, but because of various issues ended up committing to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska.
All of this was fairly new for the young man from Indiana, but at 6'5", 235 lbs, he was sure to attract attention in different places that he may go. Playing defense end for the Huskers, he did quite well and quickly attracted talk as a player to go quite high in the 2015 NFL Draft. As a Junior he had 66 tackles, 19 for loss, and 10.5 sacks, and that production dipped a small bit playing through injuries as a Senior, but he still got 54 tackles, 10 for loss, and 7 sacks during his final collegiate year.
At the NFL level he will definitely be a 3-4 Outside linebacker and contribute pretty quickly at the NFL level, and his combine numbers were impressive. He had a 4.64 40 yard dash, 24 reps on the bench press, 36.5 inch vertical leap, and 125 inch broad jump. He also has 34" arms and 10" hands. With his height, arms, and hands he was able to block a few kicks for the Huskers this past year as well.
One of the main concerns though regarding Randy Gregory is what kind of issues he may present off the field. One of those is him failing a drug test for Marijuana. Obviously drugs are always a heightened issue for players, but especially when every little detail about a player is being analyzed, all things being equal between two players could push Gregory down a lot of draft boards. Also, being in the twitter age, people jumped all over some of his comments about the New Orleans city and community back on April 14. Just like many other things on twitter, this was quickly blown out of proportion. Randy Gregory was just making a comment like so many other young men and women do each and every day, but it was nothing vulgar or profane, so this should be of little worry to NFL draft executives. Plus he even had some follow up tweets to get people to relax showing why he loved New Orleans.
One thing for certain is that despite what some consider to be a smaller size, this kid can certainly play, and he will play at a high level in the NFL as he becomes part of the Dallas Cowboys. Plus he was a complete steal at the 60th overall pick in the NFL draft. He will try to replace what was missing there in the 2014 NFL season when DeMarcus Ware was no longer on the team.