By Jay Skurski
For the past four seasons, Luke Tasker and J.C. Tretter have been roommates on the road with the Cornell football team.
They almost got a chance to do the same at the next level.
Tretter was drafted in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft on Saturday by the Green Bay Packers. Tasker went undrafted, but was close to signing as a free agent with the Packers before ultimately deciding to join the San Diego Chargers.
Continue reading "J.C. Tretter, Luke Tasker were almost roommates again" »
By Jay Skurski
J.C. Tretter saw the ‘920’ Wisconsin area code pop up on his
phone and figured the moment had arrived.
It had.
The Green Bay Packers were calling this afternoon to
inform Tretter they were drafting him into the NFL, using the 122nd
overall selection in the fourth round.
"It was wild," Tretter said. "I talked to a bunch of people
in the organization, and it started to well up inside me. I think back to all
those times doing all the hard work and putting everything you can into and
knowing what you've dreamed of is finally coming true, I'm just extremely
excited about it."
Tretter didn’t have the Packers on his radar coming into the
draft. He had met with them informally at the combine, but didn’t make a
pre-draft visit or work out for them.
Continue reading "Interest by Packers catches J.C. Tretter by surprise" »
By Tim Graham
Local boys James Starks and J.C. Tretter might not play
together for the Green Bay Packers after all.
NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport tweeted that the Packers
are shopping Starks, a fourth-year running back from Niagara
Falls and the University at Buffalo.
Starks, a sixth-round pick in 2010, helped the Packers win the Super Bowl that year. He played only three regular-season games as a rookie but started all four of their postseason games, rushing for 315 yards and a touchdown.
The Packers drafted a pair of running backs this week.
They took Alabama
star Eddie Lacy in the second round and UCLA's Jonathan Franklin in the fourth
round.
The Packers drafted Tretter, an offensive lineman from Akron, in the fourth round
today, three slots ahead of Franklin.
By Jay Skurski
Akron’s J.C. Tretter has found
a pretty good landing spot in the NFL.
Tretter was drafted in the
fourth round this afternoon, 122nd overall, by the Green Bay
Packers. The Cornell product gets to block for Aaron Rodgers and another local
product in Niagara Falls native James Starks, a running back.
Tretter, 6-foot-4 and 307
pounds, likely projects as a guard or center at the NFL level after playing his
last two college seasons at left tackle. He’s a former high school quarterback
who started his college career playing two years at tight end. With his Ivy
League background, as you might expect, he’s also a smart player.
Tretter was also an all-state
basketball player in high school, and is light on his feet. While he did 29
repetitions on the 225-pound bench press in college, he’s got to improve his
functional strength at the NFL level. Here’s a profile on Tretter as part of
The News ‘Road to the Draft’ series. Here is his nfl.com draft profile.
And lastly here's a feature story on Tretter prior to the NFL Scouting Combine.
By Jay Skurski
J.C. Tretter
Position: Guard
School: Cornell
Measurements: 6-foot-4, 307 pounds
40 time: 5.09 seconds. 225-pound bench press: 29
repetitions. Vertical: 29.5 inches. 20-yard shuttle: 4.69 seconds. Broad jump:
9 feet, 1 inch.
2012 stats: 10 games, 10 starts
Draft projection: Fourth-fifth round
Continue reading "Road to the Draft: J.C. Tretter" »
By Tim Graham
A pair of NFL prospects from Western
New York participated in Cornell's pro day Friday, and their
workout was overseen by another local.
Kenmore native and former NFL offensive-line coach Jim
McNally put wide receiver Luke Tasker (St. Francis) and guard J.C. Tretter (Akron) through various events Friday at Cornell University.
Tretter was the focal point. He's projected as a mid-round draft
choice and was invited to last month's NFL scouting combine, as Buffalo News reporter Jay Skurski wrote then.
Continue reading "Luke Tasker, J.C. Tretter take next steps toward NFL dreams" »
February 25, 2013 - 7:58 AM
By Jay Skurski
For a football player coming from an Ivy League school, "there's a positive and negative stigma," says Akron's J.C. Tretter, a Cornell senior. "You have the regular small-school stigma, but then you have the intelligence stigma, which isn't a bad one. The smarter you are in this game, the more you understand, the better you're going to be able to play.
"I don't let it affect me. You do what you can, your film's out there. Your film's your history now. That's what you are and that's what the scouts see. Now you've just got to control what you can control in the present and you just go from there.
Tretter did just that over the weekend at the NFL Scouting Combine.
“A lot of people expect you to not be at the same quality strength-wise, speed-wise,” he said. “I was talking to the guys at the bench press, and they were saying no one really knows about the kid from Cornell who got up there. They said everybody was kind of like, ‘is this kid going to be able to bench at all? What exactly is he going to be able to do?’
“You go through those stereotypes, but as long as you're confident in yourself and you just go out and show what you can do, that's really what the scouts and the GMs and the coaches are looking for. I’m extremely confident in my abilities.”
Tretter, who returned to Cornell on Sunday, said he met with “17 or 18” teams at the combine, including the Bills in an informal interview.
Continue reading "J.C. Tretter fights, embraces Ivy League stereotypes" »
