Twenty-eight years after the Pittsburgh Steelers selected his father, Notre Dame defensive lineman Gabriel Rubio became a second-generation NFL Draft pick by the franchise.<\/p>\n
The Steelers drafted the 6-foot-5, 321-pound senior in the sixth round Saturday, one round earlier than his father, Angel, who was a seventh rounder in 1998.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was ecstatic. He was so happy for me,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cHe was giving me all the pointers right now about living in Pittsburgh and what\u2019s going to go on and what\u2019s going to happen. I\u2019m really counting on his guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rubio wasn\u2019t invited to the NFL combine and played only six games last season because of an arm injury. He first connected with the Steelers at the Hula Bowl all-star game in Daytona but seemed rather surprised by their call Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was sitting in our living room. We were just watching the TV, and I get a call on my phone,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cI\u2019m sitting here, and I\u2019m like, \u2018oh, what the heck, why does it say spam risk?\u2019 I go and answer it, and I had to call them back. They asked me, \u2018do you want to be a Steeler?\u2019 I was like, \u2018absolutely yes, 100%.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is by far the greatest moment of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steelers defensive coordinator Patrick Graham credited \u201cone of my buddies\u201d at Notre Dame for helping them identify Rubio. Fighting Irish defensive coordinator Chris Ash spent two seasons as the defensive backs under Graham with the Raiders.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how many years \u2026 we\u2019ve been having this game of football, if you\u2019re really big, you\u2019re really long, somebody\u2019s going to find out about you,\u201d Graham said. \u201cThat\u2019s usually the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rubio was taken with pick 210 overall. It was the first of three picks the Steelers had in the seventh round.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you\u2019re talking about a stout, big, long man playing on the interior D-line, I think that fits the mold of what we\u2019re looking for here with the Steelers,\u201d Patrick said.<\/p>\n
Rubio had 37 tackles over the past two seasons. He played 17 games with eight starts. But he missed the final six games of last season with a broken elbow and torn ulnar collateral ligament that required surgery.<\/p>\n
He said that\u2019s no longer an issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a quick recovery,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cIt only took me about six weeks to get back to playing condition. I\u2019m 100% right now. There are no limitations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rubio\u2019s father was traded away by the Steelers four months after they drafted the defensive end, but the younger Rubio\u2019s versatility could keep him around longer. He said he played snaps at various positions along the Notre Dame line from nose tackle to defensive end.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe I came out of high school as a versatile guy, and then that versatility led me to be of a greater use to Notre Dame,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cI feel like that was an attracting factor to the Steelers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-eight years after the Pittsburgh Steelers selected his father, Notre Dame defensive lineman Gabriel Rubio became a second-generation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-606824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}