TOLEDO, Ohio — The numbers should have spoken for themselves.
When the NFL combine invitation list came out and Bryant Koback didn’t see his name, it felt like a glaring omission.
The Springfield High School grad dominated in his time at Toledo. He left the Rockets as the fourth all-time leading rusher.
Getting snubbed from the combine has just made him work even harder.
“There’s always going to be a chip on my shoulder,” Koback said. “I feel like there always has been. Coming from Springfield and all the places I’ve gone, I’ve always been kind of looked at as an underdog. I’ll probably continue to be seen that way. That’s fine. It just adds more fuel to the fire.”
Koback trained like crazy over the last two months and it paid off at Toledo’s Pro Day. With NFL scouts in attendance, he put on a show.
His 28 reps on the bench press were more than any running back at the combine.
His vertical jump over 40.5 inches was better than any other running back, as well.
His broad jump and 40-yard dash were also better than most.
Still, true to form, he’s ready to get back to work.
“It’s bittersweet not having a combine invite,” Koback said. “At the end of the day, even though I did test pretty well at the Pro Day, I still didn’t hit the exact numbers I was looking forward to. They were still pretty good numbers. You just have to take that and run with it and hopefully open somebody’s eyes.”
This part of his journey is now complete. He’s done all he can do to impress scouts. Now he has to wait for the draft to see where his next stop will be.
“I’m looking forward to getting better every single day all the way up until the time of the draft and even after that,” he said.
“Someone asked me the other day ‘Do you feel relieved? It’s kind of the end of the trail before the next step,'" Koback said. "If you think about it, this is just the beginning.”