Ohio State cornerback Jeff Okudah speaks to the media during the NFL combine on Friday, Feb. 28, 2020, in Indianapolis. Detroit Free Press
INDIANAPOLIS — It must have been liberating for Brian Lewerke. Here he was all alone. Him against an electronic timer.
It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the fastest guy or that NFL evaluators had come to see him throw.
That’s because Lewerke understood once he completed this exercise — once he ran those 40 yards in 4.95 seconds — he couldn’t really question what he’d just done or wonder what other factors may have slowed him down as he did throughout his star-crossed tenure as Michigan State’s quarterback.