Ashtyn Davis & Evan Weaver are at the Senior Bowl, earning good—and bad—reviews

Hey, so it’s Lunar New Year! And I need to clean my place for all that voodoo and plan for a trip to see family, but I’ve spent all my free time this week covering stories for this site as I’m apparently the only one concerned about coverage, so I have to invest some time in my real life and you’re stuck with a low-effort story.

In all seriousness, I do apologize to Evan and Ashtyn as they deserve better coverage.

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Oh, did you think the college football season was over? How silly.

Today is the Senior Bowl and we’ve got two California Golden Bears down in Alabama representing us on the North Team.

For all you size queens who harped on me for not listed heights and weights in commit stories, let’s see how our big bois sized up. First for Davis and then for Weaver, per our CGB North correspondents.

Ashtyn Davis (who has since signed with the Athletes First agency) is down there in Mobile, but unfortunately is rather limited in his ability to participate physically. Nevertheless, there still exists a great opportunity for him to sneak into the first round (as predicted by our now–former defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander) with a great showing this week.

With this week being so critical for his future, Davis made himself available for interviews and meetings with teams despite his physical limitations. For our readers who rage at Wilcox’s “lower-body injury” and are thirsting for more, it appears that Davis had a groin injury that persisted, leading Davis to have the surgery; he should be recovered sufficiently to “workout (sic) at the [NFL] Combine.”

Here’s one of his interviews with SBNation’s Dallas Cowboys site, discussing his physical status and why he decided not to push his body at this stage, five weeks out from his surgery (for a typical ten-week recovery). He doesn’t have quantifiable goals for the Combine, but a 4.3 40-yard dash would be “nice” along with a 40-inch vertical jump, but he’s ultimately looking to be the “top” of his class.

With nothing but his charm, his wit, and his mentals to impress teams and the media, there is plenty of material out there about Davis’s intangibles. In a short interview covered by SBN’s Cleveland Browns site, Davis assessed his own abilities when asked to describe himself for NFL owners and coaches:

I am a guy who is consistent, I feel I am very smart and my biggest asset is my speed. But I don’t have a problem reaching out to guys who have played a lot and ask questions and learn from what they know either.

Trevor Sikkema (reporter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and The Draft Network) “[r]eally enjoyed” his discussions with Davis:

Typically when players are at the podium, they often talk about what they bring to the table. In scouting, identifying what a player can do is important. But for Davis, it was a practice of studying himself and identifying the weaknesses in his game that he credits to his improved final season.

“When I’m looking at certain things on film, I’m objectively looking at how I would attack me,” Davis said. “I’m asking [wide] receiver coaches after the game what I can do to improve or what they saw on film of me. I did that my junior year, and senior year I sat down with my coach and developed things I wanted to work on.”

When it comes to film study, players often focus on their opponents. They are trying to figure out what these they’re about to go up against do well in order to formulate the right plan to attack it. But for Davis, for every hour he’ll spend on the other team, he said he does just as much scouting on himself — if not more.

Based on Davis’s inclination to scout and critique himself (hopefully skills he learned as a Berkeley student), the conversation turned to Davis’s struggles:

It’s typical to ask players what their favorite play was from a previous season or throughout their collegiate careers. But due to the topic of conversation we had, I wanted to ask Davis about a play he remembers where he knew he messed up. A play he went back to watch and got better from.

He knew the answer immediately.

“Utah on the goal line,” Davis said without missing a beat. “And it wasn’t necessarily a physical thing. I lined up poorly and missed the check and they were able to score. I was out-leveraged right away and they threw a 2-yard flat rote for a touchdown. That fell on my shoulders and it’s something that I had to take full responsibility for.”

Recent coverage seems to be placing Davis as a second-round guy with an outside chance at making it into the first round. Unfortunate that he wasn’t able to participate physically in the Senior Bowl, but he’s still got plenty of time to show NFL teams why they should invest in him. Plus, now he knows a guy who’s pretty high up when it comes to the defensive backs for a certain Florida team that will have three first-round picks...

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Despite setting Cal and Pac-12 records and putting his name in the NCAA record books this season, draft buzz hasn’t been as enamored with Evan Weaver—and unfortunately, it seems like his stock may have slipped at the Senior Bowl.

However, he is still a big name due to his production and he certainly was popular for short clips on social media. Before we get into Weaver too much, let’s zoom out as Cal fans and hear Weaver’s thoughts on playing for Coach Wilcox.

Weaver stated that he would prefer to play inside linebacker regardless of scheme and set his goals at the Senior Bowl to prove his ability to excel in coverage despite making a name for himself as a tackling machine. He spoke with at least one scout for the Pittsburgh Steelers, so he might be headed east to join up with Tyson Alualu.

Weaver characterized his strengths as his ability to tackle, stop yardage, and force opponents off the field instead of converting first downs or touchdowns. He considers himself “one of the more-athletic guys out here” and is seizing the opportunity to prove that this week.

Confidently, Weaver believes he would have a smooth transition into the NFL due to his playmaking ability and ability to “get off blocks”. He’s also looking forward to using this week to learn from all of the staff and NFL coaches to take away lessons and tips.

There was one report claiming that Weaver would not be participating in this week’s activities due to “issues with physicals”, but there’s plenty of footage of Weaver participating in on-field drills... Guess you can’t trust everything you read on the internet, including Wikipedia links and garbage blogs. Unless it has a rhyme—then it has to be true every time.

To contradict the tweet above, here’s footage of Weaver (in a white jersey with a beautiful Cal helmet) earning praise for fulfilling his assignment, plugging the gap, and stuffing the runner—a former Baylor running back. He earned rave reviews for his ability to beat blocks and get to the ball as a “classic” linebacker and was characterized as “[s]uper smart” with “[n]o wasted movement” as a “great fit” with the Buffalo Bills to replace the retiring Lorenzo Alexander.

Unfortunately, as the week progressed, it seemed like the opinions of Weaver slipped—CGB North (and others) considered him one of Day Two’s Losers due to his perceived “lack of athleticism”, which Weaver explicitly stated he was out to disprove. Weaver reportedly was not “making the checks on defense” per CGB North and a short clip of one such struggle made it online of Weaver getting beat by that same former Baylor running back.

It’s tough to characterize Weaver’s performance during the Senior Bowl practices, especially when all you have to go off of is a few clips on the garbage platform that is Twitter. On the other end of the spectrum, there were assessments from yesterday says that he “quietly had a good week” and “is getting good buzz too”; Weaver was coached by Matt Patricia—head coach of the Detroit Lions—who reportedly took a liking to Weaver for being “a cerebral player”. Weaver said that he’d love to play for the former nearby Raiders and has lost about 30 pounds since stepping foot in Strawberry Canyon as a defensive end so he can have the conditioning to stay on the field

Mock drafts haven’t been as favorable for Weaver as they have for Davis, largely placing him as a mid-round pick. While there have been some good reports on him this week, he will likely need nigh-consensus praise in the next few weeks to shoot up those draft boards.

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The Senior Bowl airs today at 11:30 a.m. PT on the NFL Network.