Ask anyone related to Georgetown football about Alex Buzbee, and you’ll hear the same refrain: he’s a hard worker and he leads by example. It seems as if no teammate or coach can make any statement about the defensive standout without the word “example.” But there is no example for the 2007 Hoya grad to follow in his latest football foray—at least not in the last half-century.
The last Georgetown football player to make his way onto an NFL roster was Jim Ricca in 1951, but with last week’s announcement that the Washington Redskins would retain Buzbee on their practice squad, the defensive-end has put himself in a position to lead by example yet again by breaking the professional draught.
“I couldn’t be happier with where I’m at,” Buzbee said in a phone interview. “I worked really hard for this, and now I have the chance to follow my dreams and make some money doing what I love.”
Buzbee is not on the Skins’ active roster yet, but he’s close.
“There are four D[efensive] ends on the active roster, and I’m the fifth guy,” he said. “If I start to produce more in practice or if one of them gets nicked up, then I’ll get bumped up.”
In a league where nicks and bumps are about as common as sweat, it’s by no means a long shot that he will find his way onto the roster at some point this season. But when Buzbee first came to the Hilltop four years ago, there were no such aspirations.
“I was a little undersized my freshmen year; my NFL aspirations didn’t really begin to develop until I got to college,” he said.
He soon found a wide range of resources and tutelage available to him at Georgetown. Thanks in large part to assistant head coach Robbie Sgarlata and strength coach Augie Maurelli, Buzbee left campus a lot closer to being NFL-material than when he we arrived.
“When he came in here, he was probably about 6’ 4” and 220 pounds,” Sgarlata said of Buzbee. “Working with Augie and on the field with us, he probably put on 15-20 pounds of strength and got faster as he did it.”
Even with his new body and faster footwork, it didn’t take Buzbee long to realize first-hand the differences between the Patriot League and NFL training camp.
“You get a new appreciation for these guys when you work with them every day,” he said of his new teammates. “I really had no idea what I was getting into.”
But Buzbee has stuck it out, and there are many people, especially here at Georgetown, who aren’t so surprised.
“He’s just got that belief that he belongs there, he’s always had that,” Sgarlata said. “Even as a freshman, he really wasn’t intimidated by any of the competition.”
Whether or not Buzbee has always believed that he belonged on the same field as NFL players, it wasn’t until late in the preseason that the reality of his situation began to kick in. In the last preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Buzbee played almost three whole quarters. The Jaguars turned to their running game to protect the lead, and Buzbee found himself down in the trenches for 13 straight plays to close out the game.
“I was dying down there,” he happily admitted. “But after that game I just let out a sigh of relief, ya know? I made it through NFL training camp and did everything I had to do. When I wake up in the morning I can always look at myself and know I did everything I could.”
As Buzbee fights his battles in the NFL, however, his old teammates here on the Hilltop are never far from his thoughts.
“I miss college in general, but I miss my friends on the team a lot,” he said. “I listened to last week’s game, and it was a tough loss. If I were there now I’d just tell the guys to keep their heads up, because it’s a long season.”
It could be a long season indeed for Georgetown football, but they won’t have to look far for their winning example. Regardless of how this year’s team performs on the field, few will argue that it was an unsuccessful season for Georgetown football if we get to see a Hoya playing on a Sunday.
