INDIANAPOLIS — Everyone is chasing Curtis Samuel.
“I'm trying to get up there, use that as motivation,” Gareon Conley said on Sunday.
“We're going to see, man. Curtis is fast,” Marshon Lattimore added. “We're going to see.”
“I knew he'd run that fast,” Malik Hooker said.
The star safety of Ohio State's 2016 football team is one of three Buckeyes that remain in Indianapolis at the 2017 NFL Combine on Monday. He's also the only one of the trio who won't take a stab at matching or even topping Samuel's ridiculous 4.31-second 40-yard dash time. Rehabbing from hernia and hip labrum surgeries, Hooker doesn't anticipate he will be fully healthy until rookie minicamp later this summer.
Hooker is still considered a top-10 or even top-5 pick depending on where you look in next month's draft. That is what a breakout season that included seven interceptions, three of which he returned for touchdowns, does for a player even if it is his first year as a starter.
Lattimore finds his name among the top players at his position as well. Conley's is too, even though he didn't rise to stardom like Hooker and Lattimore last season. In an extremely deep cornerback class for a league desperate for stout defenders on the outside, Conley should not be forgotten.
“I embrace everything that I get and I take advantage of everything that I get,” Conley said. “I congratulate them for everything they've been getting.”
Conley said he plans to run his 40-yard dash in the 4.4-second range, with an eye toward 4.3. Lattimore wouldn't put a number on his sprint but is a brilliant athlete capable of threatening Samuel for the title of Fastest Buckeye at the year's NFL Combine.
The three Ohio State defensive backs represent a special group of talent first recruited by Urban Meyer and Kerry Coombs then pushed through the program as early exits and in a very short period of time, an NFL payday. Hooker and Lattimore are bound to come off the board in the first 32 picks of the draft. If Conley performs well, he could easily join them. All three made plays for one of the best secondaries in the country in 2016.
“It means that we're prepared and all our hard work has been shown out there,” Conley said. “To know that everybody is expecting us to play at a high level and we've done it, it feels good.”
“They do a great job of preparing you for the next level so I feel like I definitely owe a lot of credit to Ohio State and the coaching staff because without them I feel like I wouldn't have been able to make a lot of the plays or be the person that I am today,” Hooker added.
And Lattimore: “Doing what we do, doing it to the best of our ability and we are very great friends. All of us.”
The three are set to put their abilities to the test starting at 9 a.m. on Monday at Lucas Oil Stadium. Hooker won't work out but scouts will again get to feast their eyes on two star cornerbacks from Ohio State with first round potential. Eli Apple went 10th overall to the New York Giants last year. Doran Grant became a fourth-round pick in 2015. Bradley Roby became a Super Bowl champion in his second season after Denver selected him late in the first round in the spring of 2014.
The NFL train of talent is in high gear out of Columbus, especially in terms of the defensive backfield. Monday allows a chance for Conley and Lattimore to show their worth on a national stage against the best players at their position to finish their professional job interview.
“I knew that before they got shot up by the media,” Conley said of Lattimore and Hooker's rise. “I knew that just from past years in camps, spring ball, how they worked. Just getting to know them. They're like my brothers and they deserve everything they're going to get.”
“Ohio State, they prepare you the best I feel like. We perform in college and then we perform in the league,” Lattimore said. “Trying to be me, Gareon, all eight players in the draft are trying to continue that.”
