MINNEAPOLIS — After propelling the Minnesota Vikings to an improbable win in Atlanta on Sunday, Joshua Dobbs drew praise from NFL players and NASA engineers.
It's just the latest chapter in the out of this world story of the journeyman quarterback who carries an aerospace engineering degree.
"A lot of quarterbacks couldn't do that," said former NFL MVP Rich Gannon, who underscored how impressive it was to see Dobbs lead a team just a few days after being introduced to the Vikings playbook. "A lot of quarterbacks would go out there and fall flat on their face. Even quarterbacks that have had success in other places."
Gannon can certainly relate to Josh Dobbs' career in many ways. They were both fourth round draft picks and bounced around teams for several years. Gannon would go on to find a permanent home — and win that MVP — with the Raiders. Still Gannon says it's hard to underscore how incredible it was to see Dobbs introducing himself and taking his very first snaps with the offensive line just minutes before entering the game.
"I don't know that I've ever been in a situation like that," Gannon said. "To try and describe just the degree of difficulty of what he pulled off (Sunday), I think it speaks volumes about who this guy is."
Speaking of who he is... Dobbs has never been solely defined by the game he plays. He graduated from the University of Tennessee with an aerospace engineering degree and a 4.0 GPA.
"I'm thrilled he came here and he was a strong student," said Robert Bond, Senior Lecturer for the University of Tennessee Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering. "He would have succeeded anywhere but we were glad to have him."
Bond was Dobbs' academic advisor at the University of Tennessee and was also a big reason why he enrolled in the first place.
Robert Bond: "The first time I met (Dobbs) was when the University of Tennessee was trying to recruit him. (The football coach) gave me a call and just asked if I would come and meet with him and his family, and talk a little bit about the engineering aspect of it. Of course they had the football side covered pretty well."
Kent Erdahl: "In all your time at Tennessee, how many recruiting calls have you been a part of?"
Bond: "That is the only one, and it really went well. His mother was really concerned that he get a good education."
Dobbs performance on the field, and in the classroom, caught the eyes of both the NFL and NASA.
"He's a smart guy," said Scott Colloredo, Director of Engineering for NASA's Kennedy Space Center. "He Picks up on things fast, knows how to manage his time, super disciplined, super humble by the way and he's a great guy. I'm not surprised at all that he was able to adjust and go with it."
Colloredo admits he doesn't know much about engineering game winning drives, but he knew enough about Dobb's academic credentials to offer him an externship with NASA through the NFL Players Association a few years ago.
During an interview following that externship, Dobbs reflected on the similarities between his passions.
"I feel like being a quarterback and being an engineer are very similar," Dobbs said during a segment with the NFLPA. "If defenses are giving me problems, or you're assessing data from film, you have to assess those problems and solve them quickly."
That assessment resonated with professionals in both sports and STEM on Sunday, and now everyone is excited to see where the so-called "passtronaut" goes from here.
"It's fun when engineers are cool and rocket scientists become popular all of sudden, not that we weren't popular but we don't have too many household names out there," Colloredo said. "It feels like all of a sudden (Dobbs) has become one of those, so yeah, this is great, and I hope we ride this wave for awhile."
"Every timeout is going to be a learning experience for Josh Dobbs the rest of the season," Gannon said. "You don't have any history with the play caller and the play caller doesn't have any history with the quarterback, and to do that in the middle of a season is going to be fascinating to watch, so I am certainly pulling for Josh Dobbs and I expect great things."
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