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FRISCO, Texas — As the Dallas Cowboys’ assistant director of college scouting, Chris Vaughn can tell you about hundreds of players across the country as he prepares for the NFL draft. Vaughn has personally graded more than 350.
But for the one player he knows the best, he hasn’t written a report on and won’t grade.
It’s his son, Deuce, a running back out of Kansas State.
Will McClay, the Cowboys vice president of player personnel, and Mitch LaPoint, the director of college scouting, made the decision to have Vaughn sit that one out.
“I appreciate them doing that,” Chris said. “Not that I think that would be an issue, but we just took that part of the scenario out.”
And when the front office — including owner and general manager Jerry Jones, scouts and coaches — discusses Vaughn’s son in relation to the rest of the running backs in the draft in the next week or so, Chris won’t be in the room.
The only other comparable situation McClay has had was a few years ago when the son of then-offensive coordinator Scott Linehan, Matt, was a quarterback at Idaho. In a room that needs to be brutally honest to get the full picture of a player, McClay thought the area scout could be reticent about saying less-than-flattering things about Matt with Scott in the room.
“It’s an interesting dynamic,” McClay said. “For those guys who work under him or are his job mates, they don’t want to talk bad about his kid.”
CHRIS KNOWS WHAT will be said about Deuce in the Cowboys’ draft room even if he isn’t in there to hear it.
Chris has been the Cowboys’ southeast area scout since 2017. Prior to that, he had 18 years of college coaching experience at Texas, Memphis, Ole Miss, Arkansas and Tulsa. He was defensive backs coach at Texas from 2014 to 2015.
But separating being a dad from being a scout is difficult.
“I know…
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