Top 30 Most Overlooked High School Recruits to Go Pro Since 2000
By Zach Bigalke
Over his four years at San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara, California, Alex Mack distinguished himself not only on the football field but also on the wrestling mat and in the classroom. He was rare among recruits in that he could have gone anywhere he wanted on his academic merits alone. Graduating in 2004 with a 4.2 GPA, the two-star center prospect drew attention from Northwestern and Stanford. Instead, he decided to go to the flagship school at Berkeley to play for Jeff Tedford and the Golden Bears.
After redshirting and then playing a backup role as a freshman, Mack started 39 consecutive games for Cal from 2006 through 2008. He became the school’s first winner of the Draddy Trophy, the National Football Foundation award often referred to as the “academic Heisman,” and finished on the first team of the All-Pac-10 list all three years as a starter. Mack entered the 2009 NFL Draft as the highest-rated center, and he ended up going 21st overall to the Cleveland Browns. In 2016 he signed with the Atlanta Falcons as a free agent, and became a key cog in helping lead them to their first Super Bowl appearance in two decades.