The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Ex-Xavier High, UConn QB Boyle hoping to be drafted
Quarterbacks figure to be flying off the board when the 2018 NFL draft gets underway Thursday night.
If the chatter from former coaches, scouts and the talking heads who dominate the airwaves can be trusted, there’s a chance of four QBs going in the top 10 picks and perhaps five in the first round.
While Wyoming’s Josh Allen, Southern California’s Sam Darnold, Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield, Louisville’s Lamar Jackson and UCLA’s Josh Rosen are the players creating all the buzz, there is a new name that has been attracting attention in recent weeks.
Former Xavier High School and UConn quarterback Tim Boyle, who played his final season at Eastern Kentucky, opened enough eyes at the Colonels’ pro day March 23 to be worked out by coaches for the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers. One mock draft has Boyle pegged as a seventhround pick by the Packers.
“Things started pretty slowly for me and then my pro day happened. I had some good numbers and threw the ball well so things started to heat up for me,” Boyle said. “I’ve been in touch with a lot of teams. It’s kind of up in the air as far as what’s going to happen, it’s kind of a game-time decision. It definitely has been a fun ride and I’m very blessed.”
Boyle did more than put up “some good numbers.”
His 351⁄2-inch vertical jump topped the mark of all the quarterbacks at the NFL scouting combine. He would also have posted the second-best 40yard dash (4.75 seconds) and broad jump (9-9) while working out in front of representatives from nine NFL teams. He also took part in Yale’s pro day a week later, getting another chance to air it out.
“I was expecting to put up good numbers when it came to pro day, but from a football standpoint making sure I could throw the ball well, making sure everything looked crisp and the ball was coming out good,” Boyle said. “I think I threw the ball well. I missed some here and there. I’m not perfect, but I definitely think my pro day helped my stock in a good way.”
Dan Orlovsky, taken by Detroit in the sixth round in 2005, is the only former
UConn quarterback to be selected in the NFL draft. Boyle doesn’t know whether he’ll be among the 256 players selected in the three-day draft, but the months of work in the Washington, D.C. area preparing for his pro day have definitely put him in position to get into an NFL team’s training camp.
Boyle started eight games in his three seasons at UConn, and teams will certainly be studying his film there. Boyle was thrown into the fire as a true freshman, starting four games during the toughest portion of the 2013 season. He completed 48.4 percent of his passes for 1,237 yards with one touchdown pass, 13 interceptions and three lost fumbles, and he was sacked 24 times.
The highlight of his time at UConn was probably the 2015 game against nationally ranked Houston when he stepped in for an injured Bryant Shirreffs and helped the Huskies pull off the upset victory, which made them bowl-eligible.
“My view on UConn, you can look at it from a negative standpoint but the only thing I can really take out of UConn is the experience of playing big-time football,” Boyle said. “I got to meet so many amazing coaches that I still talk to today. I still talk to a bunch of guys that I played with at UConn and just the fact that I was able to play college football for the University of Connecticut, being an in-state guy and having that pride, it was a blessing that I even had the experience that I had.”
Boyle sat out the 2016 season and started all 11 games at Eastern Kentucky in 2017. He got off to an impressive start, completing nearly 68 percent of his passes for 707 yards with four touchdown passes and only one interception in games against Western Kentucky, Kentucky and Tennessee Tech. Boyle completed 62 percent of his passes for 2,134 yards with 11 TDs and 13 interceptions.
Boyle credits the year that he redshirted for making him a better quarterback.
At 6-foot-3, 232 pounds and with a 40-yard dash under 4.8 seconds, there’s always a chance an NFL team could view Boyle as a player capable of being a fullback or tight end, but he said in all the interactions he’s had, he is being viewed exclusively as a quarterback.
“At that level, you need so many years of development at that position that if a team’s looking at me to play tight end or H-back, from a skill standpoint or knowledge standpoint, I wouldn’t be very developed, so all the teams are looking at me as a quarterback,” Boyle said. “I think that makes sense since I’ve been playing the position for 18 years now.”
STATE DRAFT OUTLOOK
This year’s draft class doesn’t feature many elite state prospects, as no player with ties to Connecticut is expected to go in Thursday’s first round.
UConn defensive lineman Foley Fatukasi could be the first player who played either high school or college in Connecticut to be selected as he has been projected to go anywhere from the third to the sixth round. UConn defensive back Jamar Summers is showing up on some mock drafts as a sixth- or seventh-round pick while being left off of others. The story is the same for Yale linebacker Foyesade Oluokun, who also used an impressive workout to catch the eyes of the NFL scouts and coaches; he is looking to become the first Yale player selected in the draft since Shane Bannon went in the seventh round in 2011. Fellow Yale linebacker Matthew Oplinger, the 2017 Ivy League Defensive MVP, could also be on the radar along with former UConn tight ends Alec Bloom and Tommy Myers and linebacker Junior Joseph. Former West Haven High star Erv Phillips, who caught 179 passes over the last two seasons at Syracuse, is a dark-horse candidate to get drafted and is expected to be signed as a free agent if his name isn’t called.
The second and third rounds are set for Friday with rounds 4-7 on Saturday.