According to the official times released by the NFL, Austin Mack was the fastest Ohio State wide receiver at this year’s NFL Scouting Combine – barely – outrunning K.J. Hill and Binjimen Victor by one-hundredth of a second in the 40-yard dash. Mack posted an official 40 time of 4.59 seconds, while Hill and Victor both clocked official times of 4.60.
Hill still thinks he’s faster.
“Man, Austin ain’t outrun me,” Hill said, laughing. “I look faster on TV anyways, so it’s probably his strides or something.”
In an interview with Eleven Warriors at the Midwest Sports Spectacular, where Hill and Mack were among several former Ohio State football players who participated in autograph signings on Saturday, Hill said he was told by NFL coaches that he was timed in the mid-4.5 second range on some of their stopwatches.
He acknowledges that’s about where he is as a player, but he’s still going to run the 40-yard dash one more time at Ohio State’s March 25 pro day in an effort to prove he’s faster than the official clock showed in Indianapolis.
Mack said he and Victor plan to run the 40 again at pro day, too, which surely means they’ll all be betting with each other again – just as they did before the combine – on who can run the fastest on their home track inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
“I think we’re all gonna run again at pro day, so I gotta make sure I run fast again here at pro day,” Mack said. “Definitely want to run a little faster.”
Given that Mack, Hill and Victor were all in the bottom 12 of the 45 wide receivers who ran the 40 at the combine, there’s reason for all of them to take another shot at it at pro day. It’s unlikely that any of them will suddenly be able to bust out a 4.4 at pro day, but even getting closer to 4.50 than 4.60 could lessen concerns about their speed.
That’s a real possibility, too, as pro day might provide a more optimal environment for them to run their fastest than the combine, where this year’s new schedule meant they had to wait all day to run at night rather than run in the morning.
“It was weird,” Hill said. “We was out there at 10 o’clock running, 11 o’clock almost. But I just had to adjust to it. You couldn’t do nothing about it. You just had to go out there and perform.”
Even with the unspectacular 40 times, though, Mack and Hill said they feel good overall about what they were able to accomplish at the combine, both on the field and in their interviews with NFL teams.
“I think it was really good,” Mack said. “It was a good opportunity to show myself and make some money out there. It was a long week, but it was fun.”
They didn’t leave Indianapolis with regrets because they felt like they did what they could to put their best foot forward.
“I feel like I competed at my best,” Hill said. “I was prepared.”
In addition to running the 40 again at pro day, Hill will also run the 3-cone drill and 20-yard shuttle – two drills that should put his strengths of quickness and agility on display – which he didn’t run at the combine because he didn’t feel he could perform at his best after running the 40 and going through wide receiver drills.
“I was blown out after routes and catching punts at the combine, so I just left it off for pro day,” Hill said.
Mack is planning to bench press at pro day because he didn’t bench at the combine, but other than that and the 40, what else he will do at pro day is still to be determined. While he is hoping to run a faster 40 later this month, he says he also wants to start focusing his training back on playing football again instead of running combine drills.
“I got to work on the 40, that’s the main focus, but other than that, it’s catching the ball and it’s running routes and just being a ballplayer,” Mack said. “So going to run it one other time, and then it’s time to lock in for other endeavors.”
Both receivers know that their success at the next level will ultimately be determined by how well they run routes and catch passes, not by how fast they run in a straight line, and they’ll be confident in those abilities regardless of how they run at pro day.
“It’s about what you’re doing on the field. A lot of guys that ran 4.4s was the same guys that was at the Senior Bowl that I was going against, and I was winning against them, so I feel like I’m not worried about that,” Hill said. “I know what I can do on the field.”
Regardless, both players have gotten right back to training since the combine – Mack was set to fly to his hometown of Fort Wayne, where he’ll spend the next few weeks training with his longtime mentor Dre Muhammad, on Saturday night – as they look to set themselves up for a strong showing at pro day and prepare ahead for their first practices as NFL players in May.
Saturday, though, offered them the opportunity to meet some of their fans from their Ohio State careers (and make some money in the process), and they enjoyed having the opportunity to interact with some members of Buckeye Nation.
“Being able to come back and being able to see all the fans, you don’t really get too many interactions with fans when we’re playing, so it’s pretty cool to see all the Buckeyes, and a lot of people are pretty lit,” Mack said. “It’s just dope. The energy is dope. And a lot of cool people.”
