NFL DRAFT: CSU wide receiver Michael Gallup is determined to win over NFL teams before the draft.
A mere look at the experience Michael Gallup had the night of Jan. 13 at Yale University would have cost a pretty $225. Two hundred and twenty-five.
That ticket price didn’t include the black-tie attire required or the necessary travel and lodging. It didn’t include the cost of the résumé and the years worth of work it took for most to sit at those tables and in those white chairs underneath those banners at the annual Walter Camp Football Foundation awards dinner. And it couldn’t include the priceless conversation that Gallup, a consensus AllAmerica wide receiver out of Colorado State, enjoyed that night.
Sitting next to him was former Detroit Lions star Calvin Johnson, the Walter Camp 2017 Man of the Year and an idol to Gallup.
“When he sat there and talked to me, he figured out that I was from Georgia too, and I actually played his high school in the playoffs,” Gallup recalled. “So we talked about that for a little bit. And he was just telling me about how the league works and what I need to do and what I need to focus on.”
The few minutes of chatter included a piece of advice Gallup has held close as he prepares for the next phase of his football career. “The NFL, it’s a business. So treat it like one,” Gallup recalled Johnson telling him.
Johnson also told Gallup to try to stay healthy, because that’s how checks are earned.
Gallup, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound wideout who grew up in Monroe, Ga., stopped in Kansas for two years of junior college and fortuitously arrived in Fort Collins off a promise from coach Mike Bobo, has taken an unusual path to college stardom and is now on a freeway to the pros. He played the position of A.J. Green, a star at Georgia, as Bobo ensured he would.
Gallup got the numbers, with a school-record 100 catches in 2017 and 21 receiving touchdowns and 2,685 receiving yards in his two seasons at CSU.
He got the accolades too, as a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award, given to the nation’s top receiver, and a Senior Bowl recognition.
And he recorded the highlights, with the 50-50 grabs he made look easy.
But the hardest work began this month and will continue well into April, as he looks to improve his speed and convert his potential to impress NFL teams.
“Most of the stuff I’m working on right now is trying to get faster because all these scouts and (general) managers say I’m not fast enough to go in the top three or four rounds,” he said. “… For me, coming from a smaller school, I want to prove to them that I can play with the best. Scouts are going to come in and critique my game, but for me that’s not a big issue. It’s being able to compete at the highest level.”
Before CSU’s bowl game in December, Bobo handed Gallup a large envelope with the words “Senior Bowl” on the front and an invitation inside.
“After seeing that, I was like — never thought I’d make it this far, to be honest,” said Gallup, who will play next week on the North team, which will be coached by the Broncos. “That was probably the greatest thing I’ve seen all year.”
In February, Gallup will fulfill another coveted invitation, at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. And in between, he will remained holed up at Landow Performance in Centennial.
“Michael definitely stands out to me in this process,” said Loren Landow, owner of Landow Performance who regularly trains Broncos players in the offseason and prepared Christian McCaffrey for his head-turning combine performance last year. “He ticks off all the boxes. He’s a complete player. He’s big, he’s athletic, he’s got really nice hands and he’s just so comfortable out in space, which I think is what the greats do. He’s a guy that we’ll be seeing playing on Sundays for some time.”
But first Gallup must make the NFL decision-makers believe it too. First up are the Broncos.
Denver has many holes to fill this offseason and one of them is wide receiver, where it could use a midround draft pick on a player such as Gallup, a player with the oft-unteachable skill of leaping over the head of a defensive back to snag a ball, and the instincts and awareness to gain separation on a defender. A player who has the potential to mold and could learn behind another veteran, perhaps one from Georgia too, in Demaryius Thomas.
But until a team invests in him, Gallup said he will continue to invest in himself, and heed the advice of Johnson: The NFL is a business. So treat it like one.
“Coming in here, you have to have a good mind-set every day,” Gallup said. “That’s been easy for me because I never expected myself to be in this position. So I have to come with it every time I’m in here.”