FBGP's Scout Team NFL Draft Prospect Interview: QB Logan Bonner

Intro [Music] be sure to pick up your copy of football game plan's 2023 draft guide over 1 000 individual scattering reports it's the largest draft guide in existence it's the industry standard get your PDF copy today at footballgameplan.com 2023 draft guide [Music] thank you Journey the no two Journeys are alike and with regards to college football where a player begins his journey may not necessarily be the same place he finishes his journey quarterback Logan Bonner out of Utah State's Journey started in Jonesboro Arkansas at Arkansas State but ended up going out west and finishing up in Logan Utah for the Aggies Why Utah State and we're now joined here with Logan Bonner outstanding quarterback from Utah State by way of Arkansas state out of the sun best conference we'll get to that in a second uh Logan I appreciate you taking time man I appreciate it man thank you having me on well listen let's start there you you went to Arkansas said you had a really good career at Arkansas State followed that obviously I'm a Sunbelt guy myself yeah and uh watching you dominate but then you decide to transfer to Utah State you could have gone to the NFL after 2020 but we went into that decision to take advantage of an extra year and outside of the obvious reasons why you chose Utah State we went into that uh decision as well yeah I feel like um there's just a lot of stuff that was happening in the program um and I just felt like I had an opportunity to play at another school and I know I could play it at a lot of other schools in the country so um I just took a took an investment on myself and and bleed to myself and just put my name in the portal and um got blessed with a lot of opportunities and ended up taking uh Utah State I knew the Mountain West was at the time was one of the best Converses in college football and uh I knew I wanted to play with the best competition I could and I made the jump and obviously I wanted to go win a championship and that's what we did the Mountain West Conference first year not only did you guys win a championship but you did a great job in that ball game as well um you touched on something that a lot of people don't really understand uh you you said you wanted to go and play in a good conference people underestimate both the Sun Belt yeah and Mountain West Conference as well I feel like in the Mountain West you guys see a little bit of everything defensively what was it about the Mountain West Conference that kind of helped prepare you for this opportunity for the NFL yeah uh I mean I wouldn't say the sun Buzz the worst conference but when I did leave they made tremendous strides uh every team really did um that year that I left they I was watching the games and and everybody made a huge jump after that cover deer maybe it was just the seniors coming back or whatever but um I mean guys were beating a m and stuff like that it was crazy um but no just going to The Nine West uh the the size and the different defenses they play it's more four down um not a lot of guys in space to just kind of run running down your throat football and I think that's one of the reasons why I wanted to go out there with Coach Anderson is I knew we were going to spread them out and nobody in the league was doing that um and so he would give a lot of guys fits and um just really the size the length the speed um overall you see a lot of people from the Mountain West get drafted every year just based on that I think it was a really good conference and a really good move for me especially defensively you Playing Longer got you know a few hoco out of San Jose State yeah he's a little ridiculous you got a bunch of defensive backs from Boise State back seven guys that tend to get drafted a lot so you're absolutely right there um and here's a unique part about where we are now you guys take advantage of that covert year and you know guys are playing longer so this draft class and maybe even last year's draft class probably one of the more mature draft classes we'll see yeah and so that kind of puts you guys is in a unique position as quarterbacks so how would you answer that question when Scouts want to ask well or when they say well he's kind of you know he's 24 25 26. so how do you answer that and what benefit is that actually going into the NFL well I think it's been proven by some of the greats um quarterbacks with the one position where you can play for a long time and a lot of the guys in this draft like me Stetson Hendon are all 25 years old um but we played a lot of ball um and I know Anthony Richardson's a great talent but he's only played 13 games compared to R 30 to 40 games and seeing everything um obviously he's gonna be a great player I think that he's super talented nothing could go really high um but that's another aspect of we played a lot of ball um and if you look at it in the past guys that played a lot in college tend to have more success in the early years and stuff like that so I don't take it as a negative um if I was a running back maybe it'd be a little bit different but like like I said quarterbacks can play longer especially nowadays where they're taking care of the quarterback even more um I think that it doesn't really hinder anything from the quarterback position I think it's only a plus where we have a lot more film and a lot more knowledge of just playing a lot more Biggest Pet Peeve I'm glad you brought up the running back position in terms of you know if you're a young guy and you have an opportunity to jump you better jump while you're young because you know they kind of put that age limit on you yeah oh yeah play in the quarterback position is is so funny because I don't know how much time you spend online right I advise you not to spend a lot of time online I know when you look at the guys that want to break down draft prospects everyone thinks here draft quarterback expert uh what's one of the biggest pet peeves you think about the position that you kind of say why do people always say this when I know this is not a fact this is wrong yeah I feel like it's I mean especially the people have never been back there uh I mean I do listen like if I do listen to somebody like Dan Orlowski I I take what he he says and majority of the time he's right um because he's played the position he's been back there um if you've never been back in the pocket or understand what it's like when bullets are flying games on the line um especially when you got guys that are getting paid millions of dollars to come after you like that's their whole job is to get after you um it gets hostile back there and it's a lot of things and a lot of little details that you can't even explain to some people that you have to do um and it sometimes you either have it or you don't and some guys do and some guys don't and you figure it out real quick um so I mean I try not to pay attention online but uh yeah it's it's a lot it's different when people talk about oh this guy this this I'm like you've never been back there and it's totally different when you're back there and you got 10 other guys looking at you and and they're looking at you for confidence and if you know how many confidence they're not gonna have any confidence so you're gonna have that confidence first and then you gotta go do it um and they're they're riding on you so um that's what I love about being a quarterback and just having that ability to to lead guys that are if I was going in there I'm 25 guys are 30 33 34 years old um and help them win and they got they got families feet so they're counting on me to do my job and I'm counting on them to do there so it's a total uh Team aspect um and it's this position gives a great um sense of you're you have to be in control and no matter what good or bad you always got to stay level-headed and um it's kind of a pet peeve when people are talking about it but it doesn't really bother me I just kind of laughed off like I was like you have no idea what you're talking about so well listen Competition you appreciate the choir because I feel the same way I played running back so I feel the same way when folks say oh while he ain't cut it back like bro like you're sitting up here yeah you can't everything things happen things happen in front of your face man um one thing one one of my strengths that I have about you in my nose is that you're competitive you could never say you're not competitive and one thing that shows that you was down at the College Rhode Island showcase yeah then you went down to the tropical Bowl yeah most people bypass All-Star circuit all together here you are competing the two high-level All-Star games what was those experiences like and what was some of the feedback you got from scouts yeah um obviously I ended my year short um I felt like I could have been in some of the bigger games um but I get why I didn't I didn't have I missed eight games and some guys had great years um which is fine I knew I would I would try to go for those gains but I ended up getting invited which is cool but I just knew that I want to go in there compete and show people I still got it and just might overall just have people see me meet me talk to me um show my knowledge of the game and stuff like that and that's all I did and um and Scouts were pleased and so they keep in touch and I did all I could so that's all I wanted to do is go down there and compete and show people that I wasn't just falling off the face of the Earth after the season so now you definitely didn't do that you went down there competed well um and when breaking down film and studying starting your game um I know a game I like to point people to that tends to tell them a lot about what you bring to the table I always Point them to the Yukon game you know rather than because I felt like UConn under Jim Moore Jr did a great job defensively and we saw that play out the rest of the year yeah what game would you say hey go check this game out this tells you everything I bring to the table and why yeah I would say uh the uh 2021 BYU game at home uh and then probably the San Diego State a championship game biggest stage um the Utah State's ever been on first championship ever um against the probably one of the best defenses in the country um and we put out 46 points I mean that was the first time all year that I think we somebody put more than 25 points on them so uh those two games I would say boys uh the BYU game because there was probably three or four drives on there that were 17 plays plus um so we were outnumbered their d-line was incredible they were number 12 in the country at the time uh obviously it's a rivalry game but they were getting back there all night I had to scramble do all the stuff make huge throws um and stuff like that so I would say those two games um from the fact that those are some of the best defenses I played and we played the best now we didn't win against BYU but our offense play really well um and then obviously the second best defense we probably played um in the country uh we I went out there and dominated so I would say those two games it's always about how you match up Leadership and and really go out there and showcase him and he touched on this as a quarterback you know especially an older quarterback you're asking you know guys 30 years old looking towards you for that leadership and yeah you seem like you Embrace that role of of being a leader and going out there with you guys and going to battle doing what it takes to to win the football game it shows you have a lot of love for the game well what is it about what is it about football that you would say you love the most yeah I would just say I've said this many times I've said I was just the process um people just think that we go out there and like on Fridays and Saturdays and it's like all right we're gonna call these players and just run it like those plays have been installed since January February March April May and then we've been working on them since August and for a whole month and then we practice them all week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday uh have walk through Saturday morning for the games like and it's just those time with your teammates and eating lunch dinner late nights uh just joking around you're you're so tired that you're getting kind of delirious when you're just like up there late at night and it's just the time with the guys in the process and stuff like that and then that's why when you win it's so much so much more special it's just I mean yes winning the game is all what we care about but like winning it with those guys and the effort it takes to have a team come together that's what it's all about and that's why you never forget about it Teammates yeah I run into teammates I run to one of my teammates this past weekend at uh an XFL game uh and it was I didn't talk about winning y'all just talked about oh you remember this exactly tell us about like who beat who and Matt yeah it was just it's like and this is we're dating back to like 99 2000 so we're talking about to almost 23 years uh later and here we all pick up right where we left out so you're absolutely right those are the things you remember and the fact that you guys go in there and you you work within the trenches and then you come out on the other side yeah a Victorious man so Logan listen it's been great getting to know you for a little bit and talk some ball with you man and uh working people follow you on your journey as you make the Trek towards the NFL and other professional leagues yeah uh well uh y'all can follow me at Twitter uh Logan Bain Bonner um and then uh Instagram is Logan underscore Bonner one well listen Logan wish you the best luck moving forward and thank you again for taking time I appreciate it [Music]