meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
ESPN Daily

How Aidan Hutchinson Wrote His Way to the NFL Draft

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.63.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Aidan Hutchinson made football his destiny. His childhood dream was to follow in the footsteps of his father Chris Hutchinson, the former Michigan linebacker who won a Rose Bowl and has the fourth-most sacks in Wolverine history. This dream was much more than just a passive thought: it was one of the many written goals that Aidan used as a guiding principle in his life and led him to breaking his dad’s records, bouncing back from a season-ending injury, and being a Heisman finalist. Ryan Hockensmith tells us about Hutchinson and the path that presumably will culminate in him being the first pick in this year’s NFL Draft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

ESPN Daily is presented by Supercuts, the smarter, easier way to get a haircut.

0:06.9

It's not just any haircut.

0:08.8

It's supercuts.

0:11.5

Ryan Hockensmith, when you try and write a profile of an athlete, and I remember this

0:15.8

from my own magazine writing days, you try and develop some sort of unifying, comprehensive

0:22.0

theory of the person, and it is NFL Draft season right now, and you have the task of profiling

0:28.5

and explaining to America, Aiden Hutchinson, the guy that is projected to be the number

0:34.5

one overall pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars next week.

0:38.6

This defensive end, this star out of Michigan, but the way you went to structure your story

0:44.1

here, it feels a little different.

0:46.7

How'd you wind up with the approach that you did?

0:49.0

Well, for certain stories, you realize halfway through the reporting, like maybe I should

0:53.4

just get out of the way and let the stories unfold themselves.

0:59.5

I noticed when I was interviewing people about Aiden Hutchinson, almost everybody had three,

1:04.3

four, five good anecdotes about him.

1:07.2

As I listened to these stories of Aiden Hutchinson, I realized that if you put just these

1:13.7

single, small stories together, they tell the big story of him.

1:21.6

This is a guy who built himself into a top recruit, went to Michigan, his lifelong dream,

1:28.7

became a star at Michigan, an all-American defensive lineman, destroyed Ohio State to

1:34.3

get Michigan to the college football playoff when their biggest game of the year, and turn

1:38.8

into a high-spin finalist as a senior.

1:42.0

For a man, Rush, they still pressure more, and Hutchinson takes them down.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from ESPN, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of ESPN and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.