Wisconsin Football: NFL Combine Results & Takeaways
By Paul Bretl
With the NFL Combine now complete, let’s take a look at how the four invitees from the Wisconsin Football program fared.
The NFL Combine has now come and gone and for the Wisconsin Football program who had four prospects invited, overall it was a fairly successful week.
Of course, the four players invited were Jonathan Taylor, Tyler Biadasz, Zack Baun, and Quintez Cephus. All have put out some excellent tape during their tenure as Badgers, but this past week it was an opportunity for NFL scouts and team representatives to see if the athleticism of these players lived up to the tape.
So below we will go over each player’s results from NFL.com, along with their Relative Athletic Score (RAS), and my final takeaways from their performances.
And for those unfamiliar with RAS, what it does is it takes a player’s measurements and rates them on a 0 to 10 scale compared to the rest of the players at that same position. So players closer to 10, are the more athletic members of their respective position group.
Tyler Biadasz
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Tyler Biadasz participate in any of the on the field drills. Instead, Biadasz recently had the AC joint in his shoulder scoped. However, he did participate in the interview process and was measured where he clocked in at 6’4″ -314 pounds. It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on his draft stock.
Quintez Cephus
40 Yard Dash: 4.73
Bench Press: 23 reps
Vertical Jump: 38.5″
Broad Jump: 124.0″
3 Cone Drill: 7.2
20 Yard Shuttle: 4.33
The Combine was a mixed bag for Quintez Cephus. While he had the most reps on the bench press for the receiver position and displayed great explosiveness, it was in the speed and agility drills that he really struggled with.
The 4.73 – 40 yard dash and 7.2 3-cone drill certainly didn’t help his cause and arguably, those were the most important on the field tests for him. NFL teams know he has great hands and can catch off target passes, but what they really wanted to see was if he has the ability to create separation.
Zack Baun
40 Yard Dash: 4.65
Bench Press: 24 reps
Vertical Jump: 32.5″
Broad Jump: 115.0″
3 Cone Drill: 7.0
20 Yard Shuttle: 4.31
Over the last six months, Zack Baun has seen his draft stock skyrocket and many draft analysts have him as a borderline first-round draft pick at this point. And after his performance at the Combine, he has only reaffirmed that he is worthy of that Day 1 selection.
According to the RAS scoring table, in comparison to the rest of the linebacker class, Baun displayed great speed, good size, and agility, but explosiveness was his weakest area. However overall, you certainly can’t argue with a score of 8.8 and at least from an athletic standpoint, it looks like the move to off-ball linebacker makes a lot of sense.
Jonathan Taylor
40 Yard Dash: 4.39
Bench Press: 17 reps
Vertical Jump: 36″
Broad Jump: 123″
3 Cone Drill: 7.01
20 Yard Shuttle: 4.24
Did you know that there are people out there who didn’t think that Jonathan Taylor was going to run under 4.5 seconds in the 40-yard dash? I honestly can’t believe it.
It’s no secret that he is the most accomplished running back in this class, and last season we also saw Taylor become a bigger factor in the passing game as well. Now any questions surrounding his speed and athleticism have also been answered with his combine performance.
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Along with other players like J.K. Dobbins and D’Andre Swift, Taylor is vying for the top running back spot in this year’s draft class and he only helped his case this past week