By Drew Sellers
Nearly half of the National Football League teams sent representatives to scout out the top prospects BYU has to offer. 11 athletes participated in the work out today including a core of closely scrutinized linebackers.
Bryan Kehl, the only BYU football player invited to the NFL combine, was the most sought after participant and took this chance to increase his marks in several events. Kehl ran a 4.58 40-yard dash and added an inch to his vertical, increasing that mark to 35 inches.
'All this does is help them distinguish between two guys who have equal playing ability and they see a guy who has a tenth faster 40 time, they''re going to take that guy,' Kehl said.
The day''s events started in the weight room where prospects demonstrated strength in the bench press, standing long jump and vertical jump. Nearly 100 observers cheered on those lifting weights including Joe Semanoff who put up the 225-pound bench press 35 times.
After finishing in the weight room, the entourage of athletes, media, scouts, coaches and fans headed over to the Indoor Practice Facility. Inside the comfort of familiar surrounding, Kehl and others ran drills for scouts who had stopwatches in hand.
'It was like preparing for a track meet,' said Kelly Poppinga, who played linebacker for the Cougars last year. 'We really didn''t do much to prepare to play football it was all to run fast and jump high.'
After all 11 BYU players and the two invites from Southern Utah University ran the 40-yard dash, and several agility drills, a core of linebackers participated in more extensive drills. Kehl, Poppinga, Markell Staffieri and Chris Bolden all did extensive drills for the handful of defensive coaches on hand.
'Home field advantage definitely helped,' Kehl said. 'I would say the biggest thing was just being able to control my environment and circumstances.'
Now the NFL hopefuls will have to wait until the draft that will begin on April 26. After the nearly four hour training was done Kehl mentioned, 'It''s nice to have all the tangible testing, poking, prodding and football drills done.'
'All we can do now is wait and see,' Kehl said.