FAYETTEVILLE - Dennis Johnson put his name on the radar of NFL scouts with a swift 40 time and Tyler Wilson completed 92 percent of his passes Friday to highlight a heavily populated Arkansas Pro Day.
A big contingent of 28 Razorbacks, 23 of them from the 2012 class of seniors, went through the paces in front of personnel representing 28 of the 32 NFL teams. Arkansas’ NFL Scouting Combine standouts, tailback Knile Davis and tight end Chris Gragg, didn’t run the 40-yard dash after running 4.37 seconds and 4.50, respectively, at the combine, but they caught passes and Gragg participated in one NFL agility drill as they continued to build on their momentum.
Wilson teamed with quarterback trainer Terry Shea, a West Coast disciple of Bill Walsh, to script his 62-pass performance, which included a wide array of throws, including seven-step drops and several passes with Wilson on the move.
“I thought it was a pretty good day,” Wilson said. “I’d like to go 62 of 62, but 58 or 57 [completions] or whatever was a pretty good day.”
Wilson threw to some of his favorite targets from the 2012 season - receiver Cobi Hamilton, Gragg and backs Davis and Johnson - as well as former Hogs tight end Colton Miles-Nash and ex-Arkansas and Greenwood High School teammate Lucas Miler.
There appeared to be a couple of dropped balls and Hamilton saved Wilson with a high-quality catch. Hamilton also snared a deep out on which Wilson showed strong velocity.
“What I’ve tried to do is craft a script that the NFL will appreciate and they’ll want to see,” said Shea, who worked with Robert Griffin III last year and teamed with Chris Weinke in Wilson’s training at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., since December.
Shea and Wilson formulated the 62-pass showing to highlight Wilson’s strengths.
“What we did with Tyler, I said, ‘Tyler, you’ve got to demonstrate one of the better things you do and that is throw on the move,’ so we loaded up some 21 throws that put him on the move,” Shea said. “He was really challenged a lot more in moving around and then on the run. He mastered that very well. That was one of his strengths today.”
Wilson, who will head to Jon Gruden’s QB Camp next week, said he enjoyed working in front of so many scouts.
“You can make impressions on people,” he said. “Hopefully I did a pretty good job. We completed some balls and showed some things with arm strength and velocity that I think will bode well in my favor.”
Johnson, who was not invited to the NFL combine, posted a 4.48 time in the 40, just behind that of fellow running back Ronnie Wingo Jr. and cornerback Darius Winston, who were both clocked at 4.46. The sprints were run in the middle of the Walker Pavilion field on artificial turf,a departure from past years, when faster times were posted on the indoor facility’s rubberized track surface.
“I was determined to come out here and prove something,” Johnson said.
Winston, who had a disappointing senior season, tested well with a 40-inch vertical jump, the best of all the performers, while Matt Marshall posted a 36-inch vertical and Cameron Bryan had a 35-inch jump. Alfred Davis led the way with 34 reps at 225 pounds on the bench press.
Gragg ran the shuttle in4.33 seconds in his only drill of the day, then caught passes from Wilson.
“I’d say I would give it an A-plus,” Gragg said. “I did have a drop or two, but I think I ran my routes pretty good and caught the ball well.”
Davis said the “wow” factor from his combine performance, which included 31 reps on the bench press, sent scouts back to his tape from 2010, when he ran for 1,322 yards.
“I trained hard in Dallas,” he said. “I was kind of upset about how the season went and I felt like I was going to make up my ground at the combine. When I got there, I hit all my goals, everything I wanted to do.”
Miles-Nash worked out as a pass-catching tight end and a defensive end, the positions he played for the Razorbacks on an alternating basis during his career.
Defensive lineman D.D. Jones appeared to injure a hamstring during a shuttle run but persevered until retweaking it while doing a lineman-specific running and spinning drill, ending his workout.
Hamilton, who ran a 4.57 at the combine in Indianapolis, turned in a 4.59 on Friday.
Sports, Pages 19 on 03/16/2013