Purdue hosts Pro Day

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UPDATE (4:37 pm): Purdue hosts Pro Day
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By Jason Kamery

Assistant Sports Editor

Publication Date: 03/12/2010

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Purdue’s Pro Day let 16 NFL scouts watch 15 Purdue football seniors show why they should be drafted.

Purdue’s Pro Day was set up in the same fashion as the NFL combine. The combine invites players from all over the nation to compete in a series of drills to see if they are worthy enough to make it in the NFL.

Pro Day started with the measuring each athletes height, weight, arm span and hand size. After that the athletes are tested in the bench press. The goal for this is to see how many times they can lift 225 pounds without stopping. Then they are tested in the vertical jump and standing broad jump. There are four events the athletes are timed in, the 40 yard dash, pro agility, 3 cone shuttle and the 60 yard shuttle. Finally there is a sequence of individual player workouts for each group run by the different NFL scouts.

Defensive back David Pender was one of the Purdue athletes who was invited to the NFL combine but decided to do this as well to help improve his draft position.

“It went really well,” Pender said. “I wanted to improve on the bench press and I came in and put up 12 reps today. Compared to eight at the combine I think that is really going to give me a boost. Came out on the drills today and did well. I caught every ball, that was big for me and I felt it went really good for me.

As of now Pender has one workout scheduled with the Browns and expects in the next few weeks that different teams will try to contact him, asking him to work out with their team.

Pender did not do any of the running drills at Purdue because at the NFL combine he is tied for the third fastest time in the 40 yard dash with 4.47 seconds.

For athletes, like quarter back Joey Elliot, that were not invited to the NFL combine this was a chance for them to show NFL scouts that they should be drafted.

“I think I did really well,” Elliot said. “I think my 40 time was solid, I probably turned some head. I’ve had multiple coaches call and say, ‘can Joey break 5 flat’ so I ran a 4.6. I think I threw the ball really well, our receivers did a good job of going up and getting it for me.”

If Elliot ran his 4.6 second time in the 40 yard dash at the combine, he would have been the second fastest quarter back at the combine for this year. Elliot also had a broad jump of nine feet, which would have had him tied for ninth at the combine.

The NFL draft will take place at 7:30 p.m. on April 22.
 
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