By John Shinn
In sports, hundredths of a second can mean millions of dollars. The upcoming NFL draft will display just how precious that time span can be.
“A little bit of time can mean a whole lot of money and a whole lot of draft spots,” former Oklahoma wide receiver Malcolm Kelly said Wednesday.
Thirty-seven NFL scouts packed into OU’s Everest Indoor Training Center to watch Kelly and defensive back Reggie Smith work out for the first time. Neither showed the blinding speed the league covets.
Kelly ran the 40-yard dash in 4.68 seconds. Smith ran it in 4.65. Both were hoping to crack the 4.5 mark.
Both said running on the field turf inside the facility bore some of the blame.
“I could have run a lot better,” Smith said. “I think we all feel we could have. The surface was a little slower than I thought it was.”
Kelly wasn’t nearly as diplomatic. He lashed out at OU after his workout.
“I can’t say I’m pleased with anything,” Kelly said. “I hadn’t trained on any of this stuff. This is my life. This ain’t no school, this ain’t no classroom, this has nothing to do with that. This has to do with me and my family. This is what I do: I play football.
“I’m supposed to come out here and run as fast as I can and I already had everything set up for where I wanted to do it at, and I get out here and it’s a whole different deal.”
Kelly, who weighed in at a muscular 227 pounds Wednesday, 10 pounds more than his listed playing weight this past season, thought he would be running his 40 and shuttle drills on Astroturf in the adjacent Mosier Indoor Facility. Times tend to be faster on that surface than on something closer to grass.
Kelly said he didn’t know he would be running on the Field Turf until about 45 minutes before the workout began.
OU strength and conditioning coach Jerry Schmidt said the decision on the location was made at the request of the NFL scouts.
“All the NFL teams got together and told him they wanted to see him on the surface he was going to play on,” Schmidt said. “And he agreed that he would run in here.
“As a coach, I want them to test whereever it is going to be best for them.”
Schmidt said some NFL teams will factor in what surface players ran on when doing evaluations. He said some will add a tenth of a second to 40 times when they’ve run on Astroturf or a track surface.
Kelly disagreed.
“I talked to more than one scout who said he doesn’t mark up any kind of time,” he said. “What you ran is what you ran. That’s what I get for listening to everybody else.”
Of course, players are tested on Field Turf at the NFL combine and there isn’t an Astroturf surface in the NFL anymore. Every team plays on natural grass or Field Turf.
The players who went through OU’s pro day March 11 ran on the Field Turf without complaint. But perhaps none of those players had as much riding on a single day as Kelly and Smith. Both left school following their junior seasons, but hadn’t been able to work out for NFL scouts due to injuries.
Kelly had been dealing with a thigh injury that kept him out of the Fiesta Bowl. Smith had been dealing with a broken toe in his right foot.
Neither were healthy enough to run at the NFL combine in February or OU’s pro day in March. Showing blinding speed could have been enough to move either up the draft board.
“I could have done better, but you know me,” Smith said. “I’m never really satisfied. I could have done better in some areas.”
Smith is projected as high as a second-round pick by some analysts. He displayed a vertical leap of 391⁄2 inches and produced solid times in the other drills.
Kelly was trying to solidify himself as a first-round pick. He caught passes from former Nebraska quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch and showed impressive hands. He has meetings set up with Cincinnati, Minnesota and Pittsburgh in the next three days.
But failing to break the 4.6 barrier in the 40 will hurt him come draft day.
“It’s done now,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do.”
John Shinn
366-3536
jshinn@normantranscript.com
