A few strides into his first 40-yard dash during Wednesday’s NFL Pro Day at Maryland, running back Ty Johnson pulled up, poking with his shoes at the turf field inside the Cole Field House Performance Center.
Some wondered whether the calf injury that short-circuited his senior year last fall, causing his numbers to drop dramatically from the previous two seasons and Johnson to miss his last two college games, was bothering him.
After redoing his first dash, Johnson ran a second.
This time he exploded, as if shot out of an imaginary cannon. In unison, most of the 40 scouts in attendance clicked on their stop watches and immediately began scribbling down what they had just witnessed.