The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Huff notes: The NFL Combine
02.20.2007 | Football
Preparing for and performing at the NFL Combine is a critical step in every aspiring professional football player's career. The University of Texas has had hundreds of players earn invites to the prestigious event and their efforts have quite often resulted in high draft picks. Therefore, each year, the Longhorns' next generation of NFL hopefuls have an NFL mentor they can reach out to in preparation. Last year, S Michael Huff capped a spectacular senior year that saw him earn unanimous first-team All-American honors and the Thorpe Award (nation's top DB) with a spectacular showing at the combine. Huff clocked 4.34 seconds in the 40-yard dash, posted a 40.5-inch vertical jump and leaped 10'5" in the broad jump. His 3.96 seconds in the 20-yard shuttle run and 6.68 seconds in the three-cone drill were among the combine's best. Who better to ask about what this crop of future NFL Longhorns can expect as they head to Indianapolis this week?
What was the most challenging part of the NFL Combine? Everybody talks about how fast you run or how high you jump, but without a doubt, the most challenging part of the combine is the meetings with the teams. They just never seem to end and you're always on call for them. As soon as you get to Indy you'll start meeting with them. You wake up in the morning for meetings, go to the dome for some drills and workouts, then it's back to the hotel for more meetings in the afternoon. Then, you get a few minutes to grab something to eat, and you're off to more meetings at night before you go to bed. Also, a team might call you randomly, even after you've gone to sleep, and you better be ready and get there when they tell you to. It's really tough because you can't say no and you can't be late. For the teams, they are making a big investment. That's why the NFL invites you to Indy, so it's understandable. I can say that now that it's over, but I met with all of the teams when I was there and it was tiring. I don't think I ever really got bothered by it, but some of the guys were sweating it out and didn't look very happy. I heard people from last year talking about how bad it was and you're going to hate it, but for me, it wasn't that bad. I felt really prepared and relaxed. I just had fun with it.
Why do you think it might have been easier for you? Being around a high profile university like Texas and having coach Brown and all of the great people around the program and the athletics department definitely prepared me to handle the pressure of the combine. At Texas, you deal with a lot of high-pressure games, tough challenges and deal a lot with the media. There are a lot of people there that help prepare you to deal with everything on and off the field, so when you face something really challenging, you're prepared. I think I had as much training in dealing with life as I did in playing football at Texas. That's paid a lot of dividends already, and I know it will continue to in the years ahead.
What were the interviews like? They all were different. Some of them were like interrogations more than interviews. They'd ask you the same questions three or four times in different ways every time to see if you would answer differently. Some were just really relaxed and they just wanted to get to know you.
Were the workouts pretty nerve-wracking too? The workouts are what you always hear and read about. That's what everyone wants to know. But, for me, that was the easy part. I couldn't wait to get to the dome, especially to run the 40. That's what I've been doing all of my life, so once we got there, lined up to run and did all the drills, I was relaxed and ready. That's just playing football. The most important thing was to just relax, have fun and do what came naturally. Maybe I performed so well because I was happy that I was out of the hotel (laughs). Seriously though, I think I worked so hard and prepared myself, not only in the time leading up to the draft, but during my five years at Texas, that I knew I was ready.
Do you cater some of your workouts for the combine? I started working out about a week after we won the National Championship Game. A lot of the work from the start and leading up to the combine was designed specifically for what we would be doing in Indy. Along with the sprint work, we did drills that helped prepare us for the agility tests, the jumps, bench press and all of that.
Have you talked to some of the guys going to the combine this year? I talked to the DBs - Michael (Griffin) and Aaron (Ross) - about what they will be going through and answered all the questions they had. We stay in pretty close contact, so they know I'm always there if they have a question. That's one of the nice things at Texas, there's always a guy that has been through it that you can talk to. I know Blalock and Crowder talked to Rod (Wright), too. I remember talking to Roy (Williams) before I went to the combine. He gave me some good advice and told me what to expect. But, most importantly, he just encouraged me. He said if I stay relaxed and do all of the things I've been working on, I'd be fine. That just relaxed me and gave me a lot of confidence coming from a guy that I had worked out with for a lot of years at Texas. He had a great combine, and I did all the same stuff he did and worked with him in practice everyday, so I knew I was prepared. I didn't get nervous because I really felt ready.
The coaches can help you because they may know all of the drills and can coach you up, but he may never have actually been there and been through it. The way Roy helped me, and I can help these guys, is I've been there and had the eyes of all the teams looking at me. All the head coaches, GMs, position coaches, if you're an actual player that's been through it, experienced it, you can help a guy better understand what he's going to experience. That's what Roy did for me and where I think I helped this year's guys.
What did you emphasize to the guys going to this year's combine? Be prepared. Don't get nervous or uptight. Everyone else there has to go through the same thing you're going through, so don't put any extra pressure on yourself. It's what you've been training for a long time, so once you get there, just go out and let loose.
Some guys don't end up doing all of the drills at the combine but you did most of them, why? I was pretty confident in my abilities, and I've never gotten too uptight in those types of situations, especially when I know I'm prepared. I had worked really hard and all of the NFL guys were there, so I was going to do whatever I could to show them what I could do. You never know who's going to be at your pro day, but you know everybody is going to be at the combine. So what better place to perform? I wanted to do it in front of everybody.
Everybody talks about the 40-yard dash, are there any secrets to running a better time? The most important thing for the 40 is the start. You have to get in a good balanced position, like a track stance, where you can get out fast. The main thing is coming out at a 45-degree angle. That's the biggest key to starting the 40-yard dash. If you get out with that good 45-degree angle, you'll be in great shape and you just have to run from there. It such a short sprint that the start is crucial because that's going to carry you through the rest of the race.
What did you do to prepare for a better start? We worked really hard in the months leading up to the combine on that start. We did a lot of different drills. Stuff like leaning up against the wall at a 45-degree angle and holding it. We'd have our hands against the wall and feet on the ground standing at a 45-degree angle and run in place. Then we'd get in our three-point stance and practice exploding out and running at a 45-degree angle. We did all of that as part of our workout at least three or four times a week.
Did your track experience help you? It helped me a lot that I had experience running track because I had been running from a three-point stance or out of blocks all of my life. It might be a little awkward and difficult at first for a guy who just ran track to come out of the three-point stance, but for me, having done both playing football and running track, it was pretty comfortable. It definitely could be pretty hard to pick up on the start and the 45-degree angle if you hadn't raced before, but I had a good background, so I was just building on that.
What about the other drills? We did all of our basic strength work for the lifting and to help with the jumps. For the agility drills like the three-cone drill, they broke it up on different days. The first day, we'd work on exploding out and getting to the first cone, getting in the right stance, and the second day working to get to the second cone. All of the cone stuff is getting your steps right. If you can get comfortable with how many steps you're taking to each cone and get your turns down, then you can just focus on your speed. It's all about explosive power, so you're working at maintaining your strength and speed while perfecting the details of all of the specialty drills you'll be doing at the combine.
Another popular combine result is the Wonderlic test. Tell us about that. That's an interesting one. In middle of all the meetings and workouts they take your whole group in a classroom. In my case, there were about 20 or 30 guys in my DB group. Taking the test was just like taking the SAT or ACT in high school. They sit you down in a classroom and give you a little packet that has the big threatening words on the front - DO NOT OPEN! They give you a few instructions and hit the timer. I talked to people about that too and that can help prepare you for it. Not necessarily preparing like you study for a test but preparing you for what the test is all about and some strategies in taking it. As long as use your common sense and don't panic during the test, you'll be fine. They just try to mess with your mind with the questions. I answered 38 out of the 50 questions in the 12 minutes we had to take it.
You said folks would be surprised by one of your big challenges. What was that? For me, my toughest challenge was the weigh-in (laughs). A lot of teams were looking at me at safety so I had to keep my weight up, which isn't that easy for me. I weighed in at 204 and was pretty happy because I was shooting for anything over 200. My body fat was good to, like six percent. Some of the guys came in looking sloppy, especially some linemen, and boy the coaches let them know. We'd be in the other room and we'd hear them laughing and making fun of some guy. They were rough on some guys. Glad it wasn't me.
What about your height? I tried to get as much as I could but they kept pushing my head down. I wanted to get every inch. I even tried to raise my neck and hold my breath, but they caught me (laughs). I came in at 6-0.
Did you find the same team's that showed you the most interest at the combine were the ones most interested come draft day? Most of the teams that showed a lot of interest in me at the combine seemed pretty interested until draft day. The only one, surprisingly, that I didn't get a great read on at the combine was the Raiders. At the combine, everything just seemed like any other team with them, but then the closer it got to draft time, they got more and more interested. They started talking to my agent a lot and then I flew out to Oakland to meet with Al (Davis) and the staff the week before the draft. The closer it got to draft day, the more interested they got.