Inside the Senior Bowl at South: Two Students Document a Week of Practice, Pressure and Possibility
Posted on January 30, 2026
For more than seven decades, the Senior Bowl has been one of college football’s most important gateways to the NFL. Now, that national proving ground sits squarely on South’s home field.
Since 2021, Hancock Whitney Stadium has hosted the event, bringing the future of professional football into Mobile for a week defined as much by practice as by game day. During drills, there’s no fanfare or roaring crowd. Instead, scouts study players’ footwork, timing and decision-making.
This year, two South students aren’t just watching the event unfold. They’re documenting it from the inside.
Ashleigh Bock, a senior majoring in studio art, and Mason Van Deventer, a freshman majoring in sport management, are official Senior Bowl photographers. Their assignment spans the full week: the arrival of players from across the country, three days of practices in front of NFL scouts, a Mardi Gras parade for the players in downtown Mobile, a Friday-night concert, a gameday fan fest and team walk-on and, finally, the game itself.
Their images will become the visual record of the event, used throughout the year across Senior Bowl platforms and sponsor campaigns.
In addition to Bock and Van Deventer, students across campus are contributing to the event, including marketing and communications, game-day operations and security.
For Bock, who has spent the past two years photographing South Alabama Athletics, the opportunity feels like a natural extension of the work she loves most: live sports, unpredictability and emotion.
“Football is one of those sports where you can’t just follow the ball,” she said. “You have to watch faces, reactions, the sideline, the defense. There’s always something happening that tells a bigger story.”
A studio art major focused on graphic design and photography, Bock didn’t step into sports photography until her sophomore year, answering a general call for student photographers.
“It was completely different from anything I had done before,” she said. “But I fell in love with it.”
Ashleigh Bock
There's so many people that you run into, some local people, some people that
have never been down to Mobile. And it's not just cool to hear and meet all of the
big names that are out here, because not many people get this opportunity.
So to be able to be next to them, I've talked to a few of them to kind of learn from
their perspective.
Been around a lot of the Saints production team. I've been around ESPN, Panini themselves
are down here with their production team.
Van Deventer’s path to the Senior Bowl began almost by accident. Last year, she noticed the event happening on campus and learned how photographers earned access, then tracked application dates for months and submitted her portfolio to get her credentials for 2026.
Now 18, she finds herself working inside one of football’s most closely watched scouting environments.
A sports management major with plans to attend law school and work in athlete representation and NIL contracts, Van Deventer sees the experience as both creative and professional training.
“This is a networking opportunity,” she said. “You don’t know who you’re going to meet. It could be a coach, a player, someone who helps you later in your career.”
Mason Van Deventer
This week has been such a great opportunity to meet players, coaches and everything in between.
Getting the opportunity to work with kids that are about to enter the draft and NFL coaches and college coaches has been incredible and a one-of-a-kind opportunity.
And I can't believe that I get to do it.
But once the work begins, structure gives way to instinct.
“There’s no way to know what’s going to happen when you’re on the field,” Van Deventer said. “You just have to be ready.”
They focus not only on action shots but on emotion: concentration before drills, frustration after missed plays, celebration after a strong practice and quiet reflection on the sidelines.
“It’s not just the game,” Bock said. “It’s everything leading up to it. These players are being evaluated constantly. That pressure shows on their faces.”
That pressure will peak on game day, when thousands fill Hancock Whitney Stadium and national attention turns fully toward Mobile.
And when it does, the story will narrow briefly to one familiar face.
Among the players on the field will be South wide receiver Devin Voisin, whose career began before Hancock Whitney Stadium even opened and has carried through injuries, coaching changes and record-setting seasons.
For Bock and Van Deventer, photographing Voisin on their home field will give the week a different weight. They will not only be documenting future NFL players, but capturing a South story unfolding on a national stage.
South Alabama wide receiver Devin Voisin gets ready for the big game, in a photo
taken by a fellow senior, Ashleigh Bock.
