The first thing UCF quarterback Blake Bortles is going to do with the money he receives in his first NFL contract? Pay for his younger brother's college education.
Colby Bortles is a freshman infielder on a partial baseball scholarship at Mississippi. Full baseball rides are extremely rare, and Division I college coaches have 11.7 scholarships to divide among 30 or so players.
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"Those baseball scholarships are funky," Bortles said Wednesday on Orlando radio station WYGM-AM. "So the first thing I'm going to pay for is the rest of my brother's college education."
Blake Bortles is seen as a first-round pick Thursday night, but where he goes remains an intriguing storyline. At one point, he was said to be in play for the top pick, but that talk has died down. There are rumblings that Minnesota, which picks eighth, is interested; the same goes for Tennessee, which picks 11th, and Arizona, which picks 20th and could be looking for a quarterback of the future to replace Carson Palmer. NFL Media draft analyst Mike Mayock has Bortles going to the Titans.
Blake Bortles also played high school baseball, but he decided to concentrate on football. Colby Bortles is the same height as his brother (6-foot-5) but weighs two fewer pounds (230). He is a part-time player for the Rebels this season, hitting .196. Colby also played two sports in high school -- but his other sport was basketball, not football.
Mike Huguenin can be reached at mike.huguenin@nfl.com. You also can follow him on Twitter @MikeHuguenin.
