Ball State University held its Pro Day for its NFL hopeful players Thursday, but the two most prominent players didn't participate.
Quarterback Nate Davis and offensive tackle Robert Brewster sat out while the other players ran, jumped, caught and did whatever was asked in order to impress the scouts in attendance. Most of them will still go undrafted, but some of them may have shown something that will get them a free agent offer after the draft is completed.
Their chances of getting that offer are probably lower than they could have been. Why? Because Davis and Brewster didn't work out. Scouts who would rather come to their individual workouts later this month weren't at the Pro Day and thus didn't see the other players.
A lot of times a team will send a scout to a Pro Day for a specific player and the scout will come back saying we should give this guy a free agent contract if he isn't drafted. The chances of that happening for Ball State's other players isn't as good as what it could have been.
However, before blaming Davis and Brewster you should learn why they didn't work out.
The NFL Combine was from Feb. 18 to 24. Ball State's Pro Day was Feb. 26. Both Brewster and Davis participated in the Combine leaving them just two days to prepare for the Pro Day. Rather than risk having a bad showing due to the different surface and being tired from the Combine, they elected to hold off and do their own workouts March 20.
Instead of the blame being on Brewster and Davis, the blame goes on the athletic administration for having the Pro Day immediately following the Combine. Of the 183 schools NFL.com lists on its Pro Day schedule, only three have a Pro Day in February. More teams have their Pro Day in April than in February, but the vast majority have the Pro Day scheduled about the middle of March.
That's about when Davis and Brewster have their workout scheduled. Hmm, maybe they know something the Ball State administration doesn't.
I don't know what it is about this administration, but anytime Ball State has a chance to do something nationally it never seems to do it quite right. Every time Ball State comes out looking like a Mid-Major school, not on the same level as its Big Ten counterparts.
Schools in the Mid-American Conference don't get many opportunities to be talked about nationally, but when those opportunities do come schools must be prepared to look their best. Having a Pro Day where your top prospects don't work out isn't looking your best. It's looking like a school that wasn't ready to have players sought after by NFL teams.
Maybe the date was set well in advance, but that excuse doesn't cut it. The Combine always takes place in mid-to-late February, and to help its players the administration should have followed the rest of the nation's queue and had the Pro Day in mid-March.
Why couldn't administrators have talked to Davis and Brewster two months ago about whether they would work out at the Pro Day or not? That would have given the administration ample enough time to change the date. Moving it back just a week would have likely done the trick.
Maybe the administration will learn from its mistake and be better prepared in the future. Time will tell.
Write to Levin at ltblack@bsu.edu
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