When Michael Joseph cut his own Oswego High School highlight reel, he didn’t overlay it with the typical pounding hip-hop beat — or any music at all.
MOBILE, Ala. — When Michael Joseph cut his own Oswego High School highlight reel, he didn’t overlay it with the typical pounding hip-hop beat — or any music at all.
It was, after all, only two minutes long. It featured a handful of special teams plays. Joseph didn’t start a single game at Oswego, so the cornerback didn’t have many clips from which to choose. He was credited with nine tackles as a senior.
“I only got in the game,” he said, “when they were up by a lot.”
Those rare moments were enough to keep Joseph going — and, amazingly, to make him think he could play college football at Div. III Dubuque. This week, he began chasing an even more unlikely dream, the NFL, at the Senior Bowl.
North cornerback Michael Joseph runs through drills during the Senior Bowl. (AP)
“Resiliency,” he said. “I just worked it out and I knew I had some talent and just needed to get out of my shell more. Stepping out of my comfort zone a little bit helped me step into the spotlight at Dubuque.”
The undersized, quiet high schooler — he was 5-2,92 pounds as an Oswego freshman and 5-10,145 as a senior — was nonetheless convinced he could play college football. In 2013, Joseph enrolled at the Div. III school in Iowa, where his cousin ran track, and tried to join the team.
Coach Stan Zweifel told Joseph to spend the first semester lifting weights on his own as part of a developmental squad.
“I didn’t think he was physically ready to play,” Zweifel said. “I was more concerned about him getting beat up and injured more than anything else.”
After he season, though, he began working out with the football team. Boasting an impressive ability to change direction, he shut down receiver Tyler Rutenbeck, who would later spend time with the Colts, and earned his way onto the squad.
“It was, ‘All right, maybe I can play at this level,’” Joseph said.
Joseph played special teams in his first year. He was all-conference as a sophomore. As a senior, he won the Cliff Harris Award, given to the small college defensive player of the year. The Bears and Vikings were the earliest to make the special trip to Dubuque to scout him.
Leading up to his senior season, Zweifel estimated that Joseph watched 189 hours of game field — of himself, opponents and NFL cornerbacks.
“When you have confidence in yourself it just brings out the best of your abilities,” he said . “Along with studying a lot of film — that just helps me make plays.”
More critically to his NFL chances, Joseph grew more than two inches in college. Joseph, who will attend the NFL Scouting Combine next month, measured 6 feet, 186 pounds this week. He could be a third-day draft selection.
Zweifel, who brought his entire staff to Mobile to watch Joseph, knows the odds are long — in 44 years as a coach, he’s had only seven players either get drafted or spend a year in the NFL. But were the odds Joseph would get to this point, anyway?
“It just shows them I have some resiliency, and you’re gonna get a player that’s not gonna quit,” Joseph said. “If something doesn’t go my way, I’m gonna find a way to work it out.”
