Four Huskers invited to combine
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BY STEVEN M. SIPPLE / Lincoln Journal Star
It was the type of mail that elicits a faster heartbeat. Four Nebraska senior football players received an indication of their NFL Draft stock recently when they received invitations to next month’s NFL Scouting Combine.
Safety Daniel Bullocks, running back Cory Ross and defensive linemen Le Kevin Smith and Titus Adams will be among 325 participants in the invitation-only combine Feb. 23-27 in Indianapolis.
About 70 percent of the combine’s participants typically are selected in the NFL Draft, according to longtime NFL.com draft analyst Gil Brandt.
“I’m not nervous — I’m excited,” Bullocks said Monday. “I graduated this past December, and now I’m just going to put it all out on the line in Indianapolis and see what happens.”
The NFL Draft will be April 29-30 in New York.
Players are invited to the NFL Scouting Combine based on evaluations by two NFL scouting services. Invitees are deemed “draftable” by the services, Brandt said.
Former Lincoln High standout Richie Ross, a 6-foot-4, 205-pound wide receiver from Nebraska-Kearney, also received a combine invite, Brandt said.
Virtually every NFL head coach and hundreds of assistants and front-office personnel will be on hand in Indianapolis watching players go through a battery of physical and mental tests. The combine, as well as the weeks leading to it, can be a stressful period for players.
“I just take it one day at a time,” Adams said. “I don’t want to stress myself out. It’s a stressful situation if you let it be.”
In addition to their combine invites, the four former Huskers will participate in postseason all-star games designed in part to bolster their NFL stock.
Adams was in Hawaii on Monday preparing for Saturday night’s Hula Bowl in Honolulu. He’ll play for the West squad coached by Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville.
Smith and Ross are preparing to play for the West squad in the East-West Shrine Game on Saturday in San Antonio. The West will be coached by Dennis Franchione of Texas A&M, the East by Houston Nutt of Arkansas.
Bullocks will play in the Senior Bowl on Jan. 28 in Mobile, Ala. Each year, more than 700 NFL general managers, head coaches, assistant coaches, personnel directors, scouts and other front-office personnel attend Senior Bowl week, according to the game’s Web site.
“My main concern is to go there and play to the best of my ability,” Bullocks said from Newark, N.J., where he’s working out this week at a training center with Ross and fellow Husker senior Seppo Evwaraye, an offensive lineman.
The all-star games give scouts a close look at players during practices leading to the games. Scouts also meet players and conduct interviews, Brandt said. What’s more, players are given psychological tests designed to measure several areas, including aggressiveness, character and “coachability,” Brandt said.
Such tests can serve as tiebreakers when teams have to make difficult decisions about which players to draft at specific positions, Brandt said.
Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.
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