Cavon Butler, Toledo Football News: Draft Scout Player News

10/23/20 - DT Cavon Butler, rSr/2025, Toledo

New University of Toledo co-defensive coordinator Craig Kuligowski has developed a reputation as one of the top hand-fighting defensive line coaches in the nation. That's backed up by the number of NFL draft picks he has coached. Twenty-four of his former players have gone on to become draft picks, including six first-rounders: Quinnen Williams, Aldon Smith, Sheldon Richardson, Charles Harris, Shane Ray, and Ziggy Hood. Half of those draft picks (including all of the first rounders except Williams, who went to Alabama) came from Missouri, while eight came from Miami and four from Alabama. For Kuligowski, there are two main characteristics of players he has coached who have gone on to play in the NFL - and those characteristics he sees with some of the players on Toledo's roster now.

"The No. 1 thing that you have to be to play in the NFL is you have to have a desire to be great, and not everybody has that," he said. "It's a lot easier to say that everybody wants to be great, but not everybody wants to do what it takes to be great and do the extra things. I have a lot of examples of guys I coached that played with a chip on their shoulder, they were trying to prove something to themselves or to their family, or to their friends, or to me that they could perform at a high level. And I see that in some of our players, that desire to be great. "And then the second thing is you have to have the talent to play there. If you're a guy like Aldon Smith who's got all the talent in the world, you can be a first-round draft pick. If you're a guy who doesn't have a similar talent it doesn't mean you can't play in the NFL, but that desire to be great and do what it takes, that self discipline and sacrifice really makes a difference." - Toledo Blade

rSr/2025