FRANKFURT, Germany — Brandon Collier just didn’t want his football career to be over.
The chain of events that led the former UMass defensive lineman to fill a unique and influential role in college football’s ecosystem stemmed from that simple goal. He just wanted an opportunity to keep playing.
Today, Collier, 38, is the founder and CEO of Premier Prospects International (PPI). He runs American football development camps in Europe and helps identify players who are good enough to earn scholarships to Division I schools.
So far PPI has helped over 100 players land opportunities in America, including some at college football’s signature institutions.
“He’s certainly done a nice job of carving out a niche,” said UMass football coach Don Brown, who has three German players on his roster. “There’s not a school in the country where the coaches are not going to know who he is.”
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There was a point when Brown was one of the few who knew who Collier was. Growing up poor in Cleveland, Collier had never left northeast Ohio until he took his recruiting visit to UMass.
He had a solid career in Amherst and a strong a strong senior season for Minutemen, who were still an FCS program in 2009. Collier had interest from NFL teams as a potential undrafted free agent. But a pectoral tear he suffered in his senior year left kept him from getting signed.
His former roommate Mike Douglas was playing in Paris in a European professional league. Collier reached out to him, looking for a chance to extend his career. He signed to play in Austria in 2011.
Collier quickly fell in love with Vienna. Salaries were low, but food and lodging were paid for.
“The experience was incredible. It was almost a paid vacation,” he said. “We didn’t make much money, but we didn’t have to pay for anything and we got a stipend each month.”
He played well enough that the Philadelphia Eagles signed him in 2011. But he got injured in mini-camp and eventually released with a settlement. He signed to play for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the CFL for a year before heading back to Europe. He played in Innsbrook and then Frankfurt, Germany, where he tore his ACL in 2016.
“I told myself if I ever get a knee injury, I’m retiring,” he said.
If Collier had been healthy after college, none of this might have happened. Europe was his last resort. If his knee had held out longer, his career might have changed too. But he wanted to stay in Europe, and he wanted to stay around football. The combination doesn’t produce a lot of opportunities. He planned to coach a little and run some camps and see what happened.
Even he didn’t envision what was coming. One of the kids who came to his camp was a big Belgian named Tibo Debaille. Collier looked at the 6-foot-3, 280-pounder. Squinting a little, he saw a potential Division I prospect.
“If he came through now, he’d have gotten a scholarship to Penn State,” said Collier, who now splits his time between Germany and the suburbs of Washington D.C. “I didn’t have as much juice as I do now.”
Debaille wasn’t the only potential gem he encountered. Collier knew they were good enough, but convincing American college coaches to take a chance was a different challenge. So he took Debaillie and a handful of others to the U.S. If he couldn’t get coaches to come to Europe, he’d bring the European prospects to them.
Debaille landed at Towson and still plays for the B.C. Lions of the CFL. Julius Welschoff, a German DL, signed with Don Brown, who was then the defensive coordinator at Michigan. Suddenly this wasn’t a temporary career anymore.
“Every year it’s gone up and up,” said Collier, who started by working out of his home in the suburbs of Frankfurt, Germany.
Outside of North America, no country loves American football more than Germany. In addition to supporting teams in the World League of American Football and NFL Europe, tickets for the NFL game in Munich last year and two games in Frankfurt this year were in huge demand.
“Ever since World War II, American Football has been over here. So it’s been growing over here a long time and in Germany alone, there are over 300 different youth clubs,” Collier said. “That’s why it’s so much more advanced.”
The explosion of streaming television has helped too. In addition to the two free games on German television every week, fans can watch every NFL game and dozens of college games every week.
“The NFL is noticing it. The NFL ain’t wasting their time over here. They see the numbers,” Collier said. “The game is growing. I’m happy to be one of the leaders of the pack in this and kind of found a niche that no one has really tapped into.”
Early success critical
Evaluation was the key. Collier couldn’t afford to miss early on recommendations. If he suggested a guy, that player’s success or failure reflected how coaches viewed Collier’s opinion and how they viewed European football players.
In addition to the measurables, Collier had to look at guys playing against inferior opponents and be able to project their potential. Their feel for the game. Their toughness. If they came in and couldn’t hack it, many coaches would assume he didn’t have an eye for talent or that European players didn’t get enough football experience to contribute at Division I. It mostly came down to trusting his gut.
“He’s done a good job. Obviously, he’s well respected in the recruiting area. He does a good job of identifying talent and guys with potential. That’s not always easy to do in his particular deal,” Brown said. “That piece is the tough piece. Who really has the toughness and enjoys the contact. You have to enjoy the contact to go ahead and be a college football player.”
Collier started with coaches and programs he knew and then branched out. He helped kids from Great Britain, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Serbia and a whole lot from Germany land scholarships.
The best players from his camps are invited to do what’s essentially an American bus tour. The original with Tibo Debaille visited several northeast schools. They’ve branched even further in subsequent years. Premier Prospects International products have signed with teams in each Power 5 conference as well as most of the smaller FBS and FCS programs. German linebacker Justin Okoronkwo just signed to play at Alabama.
Two players on the Indianapolis Colts practice squad — Marcel Dabo and Zavier Scott — both came through PPI.
Collier isn’t an agent. PPI makes money on the camps in Europe and the recruiting trips in the United States, but he gets nothing other than an enhanced reputation and personal pride when a player gets a scholarship. He hopes someday the program’s alumni will come back and help coach at the camps or donate to PPI’s foundation.
Africa next
Collier hopes his success in Europe is only the beginning. He’d like to expand globally, but his immediate next goal is Africa. While European players can afford to play to go to camps, the same isn’t true for most African prospects. He went to Africa last summer and ran a camp in Senegal.
“It was amazing. I had 400 kids at one camp. I kind of did it on my own last year. I’m like, man, I’m gonna invest in this and see what it was,” he said. “Success was an understatement. What I did in Europe is only a micro of what can be done in Africa. We’ve got to make it happen. If we can get boots on the ground, and build this up. Imagine how many special athletes are in these countries. I’m willing to go to all these places and find them.”
Now he’s raising money, through PPI’s foundation arm, to run more camps there — Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Cameroon — in the summer of 2024.
“Guys out there literally did a workout in sandals. Some were barefoot and some wore sandals,” said Collier, who hoped corporations might someday sign on as supporters. “It’s just getting the right eyes on what we’re doing. When somebody actually sees exactly what we’re doing and the cause of why we’re doing it, I feel somebody is gonna really help me once they help out, man, I’ll be able to really work my magic with support behind it.”
Most African athletes wouldn’t be ready to step in and play college football. There’s no football infrastructure either. Collier is looking for good athletes, whose body types project to fill out. While the camp has football skills and activities, he also runs them through an NFL Combine-style series of tests and exercises.
“I’m going out there to test them on their skills, how they change directions, how fast they are. How they could jump,” Collier said. “That’s what I’m looking for in these guys.”
He’s hoping to help younger kids get to American high schools, that could then prepare them for college. Becoming a college athlete would potentially be life-changing. Not just for the player. If an athlete sent a portion of the stipend that comes with being a college athlete back to Africa, it could raise the standard of living for family and friends.
“In some of those countries a working family makes 200 bucks a month, right? At one school, the stipend was $1,200 per month,” Collier said. “If a kid could send 800 bucks a month back, he will feed everybody in his family with that. They can help feed their whole village. They can make millions from the NIL and potentially the NFL. That can change a lot of lives.”
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Football has certainly changed Collier’s life in ways he never expected. He said this is better than his NFL dream that he had growing up in Cleveland.
“I’ve got the best job in the world. I would rather be doing this than playing or coaching. I get to touch so many different cultures,” he said. “Traveling the world. Doing what I love. It’s been a great transition from playing. I’m able to change people’s lives and my impact is more than the guy who played four or five years in the NFL. I feel lucky and I feel like God definitely favored me on this one.”
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
