Patriots Pick Mechanical Engineer in the 2025 NFL Draft

The New England Patriots drafted Vanderbilt University long snapper and mechanical engineer Julian Ashby in the seventh round of the 2025 National Football League (NFL) draft. The special teams’ player, featured in the March digital issue of ASME’s Mechanical Engineering magazine as a student pursuing both the demanding study of engineering and the elite athleticism of college competition, was picked 251st overall.

The selection was somewhat of a surprise—at the time of the draft the team’s roster already included a long snapper. But those who understand New England and the value it places on players with unique talents and abilities, and specifically players on special teams, it is a more than logical move. He is a coach’s dream—that happens to be a mechanical engineer—intelligent, hardworking, problem solving, with the ability to adapt to change.

Engineering long snapper

Ashby played first for Furman University and then Vanderbilt, where the school’s special teams unit ranked number one in the country during the regular season, according to ESPN. Long snappers need to make a precision snap, produce decisions under pressure, and hold athleticism demanded by an almost instantaneous, difficult block. So unironically, the criteria that best described what makes this special team player so unique also defines the talents of Ashby. 

The Lilburn, Ga., native, capped his career with the Commodores as an Academic All-American for the second time in his career. This graduate mechanical engineering student was among the top 100 SEC players and explained that it was the “love of the game” that helped him decide to study engineering and play football.

“The combination of mechanical engineering and playing football creates a pretty busy schedule,” Ashby told ME magazine earlier this year. “To manage I have to do a lot of compartmentalization. So when I’m at football, that’s an opportunity to really focus on football and give all of my attention and effort there and then. The same thing [is true with school]. When I’m in the classroom. I’ve got to be focused in on my lectures.”

He doesn’t allow his mind to wander. If I am “thinking about our game plan or my training, then I’m going to miss all the material [in class],” Ashby explained. He looks at football and mechanical engineering as their own separate worlds, but with “cool” intersections. The need to be disciplined is part of being an athlete and as a student helped him to organize his study and stay on top of his classes. “The two definitely support one another,” Ashby said. 

NFL Draft

The mechanical engineering student who turned professional player admitted that other students in the classroom were surprised when they found out he also played football. The situation did “raise some questions,” Ashby explained. “How are you managing?”

But on the football team, the situation was a bit different. “Vanderbilt’s a really kind of unique place where there’s at least four or five of us here who are studying some discipline of engineering,” he explained “So I wasn’t the first in that respect, by any means. And I think that’s unique to a university like this, where we’ve got guys on the team who are studying all sorts of things, and it doesn’t come as any surprise to them that I can dive into the degree that I want to do and still be able to compete at a high level.”

When Ashby arrived at Vanderbilt he began work on his master’s degree in mechanical engineering of which he still has two semesters left of study. And when his eligibility was done in the spring, he turned to “training and preparing and trying to get an opportunity to play professional football,” he said.

He gave it all to that training since playing football at the professional level was something he really wanted to do. His strategy paid off when he was heading into the last round, and he remained undrafted and then the New England Patriots decided to make one final trade in the 2025 NFL draft and slid down in the seventh round in return for two picks. 

Ashby is now a Patriot and is the first long snapper to hear his name called in the draft since 2021. He is also the 10th player drafted by the Patriots this year and he may get on-the-job experience very quickly. Just two days post-draft, the Pats released its longest-tenured player long snapper Joe Cardona, who joined the team in 2015 (drafted in the fifth round 166th overall) and who won two Super Bowls with the franchise. 

Cathy Cecere is membership content program manager.