Raiders’ Miller has drive to succeed
Kolton Miller, the Raiders’ looming offensive tackle and first-round draft pick, came off as fairly mild-mannered at an introductory news conference last week, punctuating his answers with a smile and using terms like “superstoked.”
Angus McClure, the former UCLA defensive line coach, knows there’s a feistier side.
At a practice in 2016. Miller, then a redshirt sophomore with five college starts, was going against UCLA defensive end Takkarist McKinley, a future first-round pick of the Falcons. McClure recalls McKinley directing some “choice words” at Miller after one block. Then the next rep came around “and Kolton blocked him again.”
“I think Takk was a little frustrated,” said McClure, now a coach at University of Nevada. “Takk shoved him. And I think Kolton then essentially almost picked him up off the ground.”
A scuffle ensued. Both instigators were sent off the field. Miller had left an impression.
“It was kind of good to see Kolton fight,” said McClure, who helped recruit Miller from Roseville High. “You have that puppy dog and you’re prodding him, prodding him. And then he just snapped.”
Said Adrian Klemm, the Bruins’ offensive-line coach at the time: “I loved it.”
“The one concern (with Miller) was he was a little quiet,” Klemm said. “He just had a quiet drive within him. Sometimes people mistake his quietness for meekness. That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The Raiders showed confidence in Miller by making him the No. 15 overall pick in last week’s draft. Immediately there were questions about whether Oakland had reached for the 6-foot-9, 309-pounder, who hits the field with the Raiders for the first time at Friday’s rookie minicamp.
Miller arrived at UCLA “a little raw,” Klemm said, and sat out his first year in the program. He made five starts as a redshirt freshman replacing an injured teammate and opened the 2016 season as the Bruins’ starting right tackle. Klemm says he still considers UCLA’s opener that season, against Texas A&M in front of 100,000 fans in College Station, to be Miller’s best game.
“He was dominant in that game,” said Klemm, a former NFL offensive lineman who won three Super Bowls with the Patriots. “It was a test in that game, being in a silent count, in that type of environment. To see him respond like that — that was the big thing, to see him embrace it, be energized by it. I was like, ‘We’ve got something.’ ”
The question with Miller has never been size. Jon Osterhout, head coach at American River College and founder of the Linemen Win Games training program in Sacramento, admitted to being skeptical when he first heard about a 6-foot-7 sophomore at nearby Roseville. That changed when Miller arrived for his program.
“I hear that all the time, and then they walk in and they’re 6-4,” Osterhout said. “This kid had legitimate height and length. And in his first session, you could see his natural ability to bend, the flexibility, the foot quickness.”
Osterhout has continued to train Miller, and before last week’s draft told the Sacramento Bee: “I’d be shocked if he doesn’t go in the top 15 picks.” His words proved prescient despite Miller starting only one full season at UCLA. After missing the latter half of 2016 because of injury, Miller moved from right to left tackle last season and earned secondteam All-Pac-12 honors.
“His ability to pull out in space and then come to balance under control on a level-2 defender, with his sheer size, is incredible,” Osterhout said this week. “That ability to come to balance after being in a full-speed sprint, and then engage and set his hands and explode his hips, that’s a rare combination. And it’s certainly why he went in the spot he went.”
Others seem less convinced. In a recent article on thescore.com, for example, three anonymous NFL personnel men were polled about the draft’s first round, including its most “headscratching” selection. Two chose Miller, with one saying: “You really didn’t hear about him at all until the combine. People would be lying to you if they told you different.”
Miller did perform well at the combine. He placed among the top five offensive linemen in five of six tests, ran a 4.95second 40 and set a record at his position with a 10-foot, 1-inch broad jump. Osterhout said boldly that if the combine tested players in the front squat, Miller “would’ve gone higher than 15. He has a 455pound front squat for five (reps), easy.”
Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie said after drafting Miller that the team’s evaluation was based on “tape. We don’t draft guys by combine.”
Those who have coached or worked with Miller rave about two things: his work ethic and athleticism for a man his size. McClure, the former UCLA coach, recalled visiting Miller as a high school junior and watching him do a ladder footwork drill.
“His feet looked like a buzz saw, how quick they were,” McClure said.
Dan Jameson, a Sacramentobased trainer, likes to describe Miller as “biblical” because: “A thousand years from now, they’re still going to be talking about this kid’s athleticism.”
Jameson was in Texas for the draft and said Miller was adamant about not missing a workout — even on draft day. Hours before donning a gray suit and striped tie and learning where his NFL future would be, Miller was in his hotel pool, immersed in an hourlong resistance workout.
“His biggest asset is his work ethic,” Jameson said. “He’s the most humble, caring kid I know outside of those lines. What makes him great is what he is as a person — and it’s everybody’s doubt.
“When we were at the combine, he would look at me and say, ‘See this? (Offensive tackles Mike) McGlinchey, Connor Williams and Orlando Brown (Jr.) is the future.’ I said, ‘They don’t believe in you.’ He’s like, ‘I know. You’ll see.’ ”