The entire football world was shocked and surprised when the New England Patriots took Cole Strange in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. But Strange himself appeared to be just as surprised as the rest of us.
In a recent interview with MassLive.com, Strange’s father Greg Strange said that Cole thought he was being pranked at first. He said that Cole asked to get Belichick on the phone just so he could confirm it wasn’t his friends pranking him.
“[Cole] said, ‘Sir, I don’t mean to be disrespectful at all, but I’ve gotta know because I’ve got some crazy friends. Is this a prank?’ The guy said, ‘Hold on just a second.’ And then Bill Belichick got on the phone and of course, unless you’ve been under a rock for the last 20 years, you know Bill Belichick’s voice,” Greg Strange said. “As soon as I heard Bill Belichick’s voice, Cole and I both started screaming and hugging and acting crazy. Probably saying a bunch of inappropriate stuff. We were so excited…”
It’s pretty well-documented that Cole Strange was not viewed as a first-round pick by the overwhelming majority of draft analysts. By the looks of things, even the Strange family didn’t seem to think he was.
Cole Strange played at Chattanooga for six years, during which he earned all-conference honors four times.
He was a two-time winner of the Southern Conference’s prestigious Jacobs Blocking Award in back-to-back years.
If anyone can turn this underdog into a star, it’s Bill Belichick though.