BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – Nearly a decade ago, after Charlie Weis left the New England Patriots for Notre Dame, his old corner office in the New England Patriots’ facility sat empty for a few months. It quickly turned into a de facto personalized workout room and unofficial draft headquarters for head coach Bill Belichick. He ran on the treadmill and rode the exercise bike in there, with film equipment rigged to watch college players while working out.

One coaching candidate on a job interview recalled being quizzed by a sweaty Belichick mid-workout. Part of the interview included an impromptu evaluation of an obscure guard prospect from a low-level school. That image of Belichick, slogging along, soaked in sweat and finding paradise by the film projector’s light is an appropriate image when attempting to quantify how the Patriots evaluate and draft college prospects.

Interviews with a half-dozen college coaches whom Belichick either values in the draft process or consistently mines talent from their program reveal a portrait of a coach and organization relentlessly trying to quantify the unquantifiable – toughness, love of the game and football IQ.

In interview after interview, the conversation turned back to Belichick, whose evaluation ability is much easier to quantify – he grinds out the draft harder than any coach in the NFL.

View photos Bill Belichick (middle) and Alabama head coach Nick Saban share some thoughts at the Crimson Tide’s pro day last March. (AP) More

“I’ve never experienced that with any other team, not to the extent that he’s involved,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said in a phone interview this week. “With other teams, I’ve had first-round picks where I’ve never talked to the head coach. I’m not sure who they’re talking to.

“It’s a great lesson for all of us. We think we have all the answers, but to have the answers you have to work really hard at it.”

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Meyer said New England’s evaluation is so hands on that he recalls defensive coordinator Matt Patricia asking for film of specific practices that helped show a prospect’s toughness. Former Arkansas and Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema says Belichick will call annually about prospects and be unable to resist peeking ahead to prospects who’ll be eligible the following year. (He did that a year before Melvin Gordon left Wisconsin.)

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz recalled a 20-minute conversation with Belichick last spring about former Hawkeye offensive lineman Cole Croston, an undrafted free agent who will be on New England’s 53-man roster for the Super Bowl. Ferentz chuckles as he recalls a one-way conversation with “him telling me, not me telling him” about Croston.

“I remember hanging up the phone and thinking, ‘How many coaches in the NFL even know who Cole Croston is?’”

Ferentz chuckles at the memory.

“Forget about evaluating him, knowing who he is. I’m not sure if anyone does as much work and research on players as Bill. He has an ability to see a little further than the obvious.”

The ability to see and trust has evolved over the years with Belichick. Few would know better than Ferentz, who worked for Belichick in Cleveland from 1993-95. Ferentz’s son, James, is one of three Iowa players on the Patriots’ roster and another son, Brian, worked for three years as a Patriots staff member.

Ferentz recalls the metrics Belichick used in Cleveland for drafting players modeled after the New York Giants teams of that era. They were swayed heavily by the size and speed of prospects, trying to replicate the punishing defenses and physical offenses under Bill Parcells during his Giants heyday.

These days, Ferentz points to the undersized, undrafted and overlooked players who have dotted the Patriots’ roster on eight Super Bowl teams under Belichick. He marvels at the philosophical shift, which could also be interpreted as Belichick evolving as a personnel man, more refined and defined in his vision of what players will work in his system.

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