AMES, Iowa -- Enterprise-Leader sports editor Mark Humphrey interviewed Dylan Soehner, a 2015 Prairie Grove graduate attending Iowa State on a football scholarship, via telephone Friday, May 31. As a high school senior, Soehner caught 38 passes for 628 yards and 9 touchdowns highlighted by a scoring reception in the 2015 Class 4A State championship game. Soehner recently won several awards at Iowa State. The following is a transcript of part two from that interview.
WCEL: "Describe prestige of playing NCAA Division I football for Iowa State?"
Dylan Soehner: "It's definitely an experience. It's humbling. You grow up as a kid and watch it on TV. Those guys are your role models. It puts you in a position where you influence others. You become a role model to them. It's just a good feeling to know that you've become a role model."
WCEL: "I've seen Facebook photos of you in your Iowa State jersey No. 89 reading to children in classroom. Tell us about that?
Dylan Soehner: "We've got opportunities to do community service. We've done tornado clean up, we've done hospital visits. We've went into schools and read to kids. (Iowa State head football) Coach (Matt) Campbell, one thing he takes pride in his program. He considers the players as 'his guys.' So whenever he can get his kids out into the community, it shows what the program is all about."
WCEL: "How do you keep from getting caught up in hype and glamour that comes with the spotlight such as in the preseason when everyone's undefeated?"
Dylan Soehner: "We talk about that a lot and Coach Campbell, he talks about that a lot. With Coach Campbell one of his deals is that ego will just kill more teams than you can think. Another thing is you mentioned when everyone's undefeated in preseason, our fan base is incredible. People will write all kinds of good things when it's preseason and everyone's undefeated. On the other hand if you have a bad game, people write all kinds of bad things. We try not to read that stuff. We try to keep everything in our walls. We're cautious of it. We take it with a grain of salt."
WCEL: "What was it like knocking off No. 3 Oklahoma on Oct. 7, 2017, by a final score of 38-31?"
Dylan Soehner: "That was the craziest feeling like you can't describe it. To go in their place, we were down 14-0 in first 10 minutes, to be down early and fight back with my teammates, that was just an incredible feeling. It was the first game I actually played meaningful reps on offense. Up to that point I had been playing a lot on special teams. I was actually playing in the heat of the moment -- it was something. When the clock hits zero and it's dead silent, then our fans start screaming for us, it was just incredible.
Then in the next two weeks TCU comes into our place and they're undefeated and we beat them. Just a combination of those two wins was just incredible. Not many people can say they beat a Heisman trophy winner. I don't play defense, but our guys on defense they did it."
WCEL: "What about playing against former OU quarterback Baker Mayfield?
Dylan Soehner: "He's fun to watch. He's explosive. He's a good football player. He was slinging it. Another thing that's funny about that day, we started a fifth-year senior walk-on quarterback. He threw for over 350 yards in that game. It was incredible. We're just trying to get to the point where wins like that are expected. That win got national attention. What we're trying to do is change the culture so that if we win a game like that it's not going to draw national attention because we're expected to win it. I just wonder how many Heisman quarterbacks we have to play against? They keep pumping them out."
WCEL: There was spring flooding that closed I-29 going north and south on the western boundary of the state causing traffic to have to take a big detour to get around the flooding last month. Did flooding affect your area?"
Dylan Soehner: "We don't have any flooding where I'm at right now (in Ames, Ia.), but it seems if you drive 20 minutes in any direction there's flooding."
WCEL: "How did you adjust to Iowa weather with colder winter temperatures?"
Dylan Soehner: "You win two weeks in the spring and two weeks in the fall when it's about right. I'd never seen a negative temperature before so that was kind of creepy. Last winter it got down to a negative 60 wind chill so there was two days of class that we got out."
WCEL: "Describe a typical workout regimen?"
Dylan Soehner: "They work us no more than 1.5 hours at a time in conditioning and weights. Anything over 1.5 hours, guys are losing focus, you're worn out. So whatever we're doing, they work us no more than 1.5 hours at a time. It can get pretty rigorous, it just kind of depends on the time of the year. In the summer it gets pretty rigorous. We're concentrating on our upper body two days and working our lower body two days throughout the summer. During the season the workouts lighten up a little bit. It's more maintaining the strength that you do have, you're not trying to increase. Just show up ready to work out."
WCEL: "What kind of classes at Prairie Grove High School prepared you for college?"
Dylan Soehner: "The AP courses that they have. When they told me these AP courses will help prepare you for college I was like, 'Oh, whatever.' Those AP courses didn't prepare me for college -- but the fact that you get the college credit helped me a lot. I came in with a decent amount of credits that helped me get a head start. I've got enough credits that I'm going to graduate this fall. I will graduate in December with a Bachelor of Finance, but I've got another year of eligibility. Those credits have helped me because I've got an extra year for my Masters degree."
WCEL: "What sort of Masters degree are you going to pursue or have you decided that yet?"
Dylan Soehner: "I have to decide before August so it's coming up. I'm thinking I might get a Masters degree in Financial Planning. That might be a good fit for me."
WCEL: "What is your advice to kids dreaming of landing an athletic college scholarship?"
Dylan Soehner: "You can't let what people say about you dictate what you're going to do with your life. Wake up every day with a purpose and have a why. Know why you do things, why you go to work, why you want to get better and why you want to succeed. Knowing your why is really important. You got to have something to drive you. Being intrinsically motivated, not a lot of people are, it really helps you. If you know your why, you can get intrinsically motivated."
WCEL: "Tell us about winning the Jim Doran Outstanding Special Teams Player award named for a guy who was a legend at Iowa State?"
Dylan Soehner: "From my redshirt freshman year, I kind of made my mark on special teams. That was where I made my mark on the field. I started off on special teams and then my role on offense continued to grow, and it's continuing to grow because of special teams. When you perform on special teams at a high level, the coaches are like, 'We've got to play this guy and they will play you -- if you can do it. It's a lot of fun. You have to be unselfish. It definitely takes a sense of selflessness. You just got to be a good teammate. There's a lot of unselfish guys on special teams. They could have given that award to a lot of guys. I accept it gratefully. It's a blessing."
WCEL: "Any chance Iowa State might run some sort of end around and have you throw the ball like Prairie Grove did against Huntsville when they ran that double pass and you threw that long touchdown pass?"
Dylan Soehner: "It's funny you should ask that. We actually tried to run a play like that against West Virginia. We were lined up for a field goal. It was in the playbook and they called it, but we ran out of time on the play clock so we just kicked the field goal."
WCEL: "Are they aware you played quarterback for the junior high team?"
Dylan Soehner: "They are aware that I do have an arm and they do know that I played quarterback in junior high."
WCEL: "There's a lot on your plate with classes, football and working out. How did you learn to organize time management?"
Dylan Soehner: "They do a good job of starting you out. As a freshman you have a mandatory eight hours of tutoring a week. I hated it as a freshman, but it teaches you time management. After your freshman year they let you go. You're on your own. You kind of pick it up on the fly, school first, then football. You get it done. That's kind of a saying we have here, 'You get it done.'"
WCEL: "Describe things learned from Coach Danny Abshier at Prairie Grove?"
Dylan Soehner: "Coach Abshier was so good at growing those young high school kids into men. He kind of prepared me for anything that I could have gotten into. Him and the whole coaching staff they were so good at working with us. Even if I hadn't gotten into football, anything that I could have done, Coach Abshier, he prepared me for it."
WCEL: "Which high school football drills best prepared you for college?"
Dylan Soehner: "You wouldn't believe how many different drills there are out there for every position, but there's no one specific drill that prepared me for college."
WCEL: "There is no pay for NCAA football players, do you think that rule should be changed or amended?"
Dylan Soehner: "Sometimes it gets a little tough. With the amount of time we put in school and football you can't work significant hours at a minimum wage job to make any kind of money. There's just no time for it. Scholarship guys get a stipend once a month. It's not very much but it does help a little bit. We're not starving out here. We're very well fed and we're taken care of. I do think some rules are a little too strict. We had a player, who started his own company. He wasn't allowed to promote his own business because he's a football player. He had to set up a Facebook profile, but he couldn't use his own name. Some rules need amended. To tell a guy that he can't promote his own company that's a little too strict. I get it, they don't want guys signing Nike deals while they're in college. So there are some rules that could be changed, but overall, we're well taken care of. We're getting a free education, we've got room and board, and we've got health insurance."
Sports on 06/12/2019