Former Hawkeye cornerback Greg Mabin overcame a season-ending injury to pursue his dreams of playing professional football.
By Jess Westendorf
Second chances don’t come very often, but former Hawkeye cornerback Greg Mabin got another chance through hard work and dedication.
After an ankle injury cut his senior season short and set his NFL dreams back, the main focus was to figure out how he could get back to that level.
At the start of Mabin’s senior season, he was projected to enter the 2017 NFL Draft and was getting some attention as a possible top 20 cornerback by CBSSports.
The start of Mabin’s senior season was good but average. He saw a lot of action, especially with teammate Desmond King lined up on the opposite side.
Mabin made 37 tackles, forced 1 fumble, but the one thing he did not record was an interception.
Then, on Nov. 5, 2016, Mabin played in his last football game as a Hawkeye against Penn State.
To say this was an awful game for Iowa would be an understatement — the Hawkeyes fell in a 41-14 beating.
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After Mabin and the Hawkeyes returned to focus on their next opponent, Michigan, the worst happened.
During the last padded practice before Iowa upset Michigan, Mabin stepped on a teammate’s leg; Mabin broke the talus bone in his ankle, ending his Hawkeye career.
Mabin made 35 starts during his time at Iowa, but the one that really got to him was that his last start was at Penn State. It was definitely not the way he wanted his career to end.
“It was frustrating to have that be my last collegiate game at Iowa,” he said. “I went through a time where I doubted myself. I asked myself, ‘Why me, what did I do to deserve this,’ honestly just feeling sorry for myself. The people close to me got me out of that, and once I started rehab, focusing on what I could control, it helped me a lot.”
Though there were some hard emotions after his injury, Mabin looked to healing his ankle as well as mentoring the younger players on the team, Manny Rugamba and Josh Jackson.
He was able to stay in tune with football as well as the cornerback position. It was his way of staying prepared even though he wasn’t playing.
Mabin also received words of encouragement from many of his teammates as well as from his family, who supported his road back to football.
Fellow DB King gave Mabin lots of words of encouragement.
“He told me to keep my head up and take the rehab slowly,” Mabin said. “You don’t want a setback. Know your body, and know what you can do.”
2017 started to look up for Mabin; he was able to start rehab and got to meet with NFL scouts.
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After Iowa’s loss at the Outback Bowl in January, Mabin went home to Florida to continue rehab and start training for the NFL.
The 6-2 cornerback looked to Sam Madison, a former four-time NFL Pro Bowler who had turned his knowledge of the cornerback position into a way to help younger players.
The work that he did with Mabin and the impact he made, Mabin won’t soon forget.
“It was great,” Mabin said. “I grew up watching him. Coming from south Florida and him playing for the Miami Dolphins, it was great to learn from him. To be able to soak up everything he had to say was invaluable.”
At Iowa’s Pro Day in April, Mabin hadn’t been cleared to participate, but that didn’t stop him from attending and supporting teammates as well as getting his name out to scouts.
Eventually, strength coach Chris Doyle helped set up a private practice session in which scouts could watch him do drills. He even taped the practice to send to other NFL scouts.
Though his ankle was only to about 80 percent healthy, Mabin felt confident in his abilities.
“I felt like I was good enough to show teams that I was improving, and I was still ready to get to work, and that I would still give it my best shot,” Mabin said.
After a long road of recovery and getting back on the field, Mabin signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent.
It finally seemed as though Mabin was heading up and would have his chance to play professional football, but then, at one of the first practices, he pulled a hamstring.
This set him back once more and prevented him from practicing. Eventually Tampa Bay released him, and it was back to the drawing board.
After a few weeks and different tryouts, the Buffalo Bills entered the picture, and the Bills ended up signing him a week later.
Since then, he has attended Buffalo practices and started to get accustomed to the Bills’ defense.
“I had a couple practices in Buffalo where I got all of the defense thrown at me at once, so that was overwhelming, but I feel like I adjusted pretty well to it,” Mabin said. “Right now, I am back home, training and getting my body ready for training camp.”
Currently, he is on a three-week break, but that doesn’t stop him from working out twice a day and treating it as though he is still at camp.
The veterans on the team have really helped make that transition a bit easier, especially former Hawkeye Micah Hyde.
“At first, I was starstruck, but then it was easy to let that fade and get down to business,” he said. “Micah for sure has helped out. When I got signed, he told me that he would watch out for me, and if I stuck by him I would be good.”
The transition from Iowa’s man defense and going to a pro defense of focusing on the quarterback has been challenging and one of the main focuses he has as he heads into training camp.
“I want to work on my transition and work on my breaks,” he said. “Because I am a taller corner, I have the tendency to be higher in my backpedal and work on getting low to explode out better.”
Now that making an NFL roster is closer than ever, Mabin looks back to his time at Iowa as valuable learning experiences and forming great friendships. In fact, the one thing he misses the most wasn’t what they did on the field but off.
“I would have to say just being around with the guys, whether we were playing video games or being out downtown and especially being in the locker room after a win — just that comradery we had on and off the field is what I miss the most,” Mabin said.
Mabin will participate in the Bills’ training camp July 27 through Aug. 15.
