Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst likes to break down a season into four phases. The first phase is winter conditioning, the second phase is spring football, third phase is fall camp, and the fourth phase is the season.
When it comes to the NFL Draft one could break it into four phases too. Phase one would be the college football all-star games, phase two would be the scouting combine, phase three would be the combination of pro days and private workouts, and phase four being the NFL Draft.
For the former Wisconsin players they are currently in phase three as the Badgers will have a total of 11 players competing at the Badgers pro day on Wednesday, March 11th.
The players are punter Connor Allen, outside linebacker Zack Baun, center Tyler Biadasz, wide receiver Quintez Cephus, offensive lineman Jason Erdmann, kicker Zach Hintze, outside linebacker Tyler Johnson, inside linebacker Chris Orr, defensive end David Pfaff, running back Jonathan Taylor, and inside linebacker Travis Wiltjer. Drew Rakers a long snapper from UW-Platteville will also partake in the Badger pro day.
Baun, Biadasz, Cephus, and Taylor were all invited to the NFL scouting combine in February and the four may not compete in all of the drills tomorrow as they may be happy with what they did in Indianapolis.
Cephus will likely run the 40-yard dash again as he posted a 4.73 second time. If he can improve upon his time he’ll likely ease concerns from NFL scouts when it comes to his speed.
The pro day will be particularly important for Orr as he wasn’t invited to the combine and wasn’t invited to play in any of the college all-star games.
Outside of the workouts, he goes on leading up to the draft this will be one of the first times Orr will have a chance to demonstrate what he can do in front of NFL teams. In particular, for Orr, he’ll need to run a good 40-yard dash time.
The NFL Draft will be held in Las Vegas starting April 23rd to April 25th.