U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY — After participating in Air Force’s pro day, wide receiver Brandon Lewis admitted the NFL was never part of his plan growing up.
“I’ll be honest, growing up, this wasn’t really what I envisioned,” Lewis said. “I was just excited to get Division I offers to play football being a smaller guy.”
However, a very solid season, leading the team in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns, coupled with some big plays in Air Force’s bowl game win over Louisville put Lewis on the radar of some NFL agents. He scored two touchdowns with 172 receiving yards in the ServPro First Responders Bowl.
“You got to have film and having plays like that on my resume is good and I think it opened a lot of eyes and to do it on national TV against a power five school, it shows Air Force has athletes,” he said.
It wasn’t until after the bowl game Lewis knew he’d be going to a pro day either.
“I wasn’t really planning on doing it,” he said. “I had people telling me, Coach [Jake] Campbell saying ‘maybe you should do it. You can put up good times.’ And, after the bowl game Coach Campbell was like ‘yeah, you’re doing a pro day,’ so he didn’t really give me an option, so I was like I’ll give my everything and prepare for it.”
A handful of Falcons performed in front of 23 NFL scouts, the most scouts the Academy has ever seen. Much of that was thanks to defensive tackle Jordan Jackson who missed the NFL combine with a hamstring injury. With the extra eyes at pro day, Lewis took advantage of the opportunity.
“I think I showed I was athletic,” Lewis said. “I can run routes, I can catch the ball. I think I opened some eyes and I’m hoping I get an opportunity… I’m just hoping I get a shot. That’s all I need is just a shot… Just having a chance to do this is a blessing. I praise God and my family for doing a good job in supporting me through all of this.”