Nervousness and anxiety aren’t what Texas Tech football player Romello Height felt when he showed up early Thursday, March 26, at the Sports Performance Center.
Seeing scores of pro scouts, coaches, NFL team logos, stopwatches, tablets, and notepads got him revved up. Jitters? Are you kidding?
“Oh, man, my adrenaline … I was super ready,” the Tech edge defender said. “Knowing that all 32 teams were here, I was ready to go out and put on a show and perform for those guys.”
Thursday was Tech’s on-campus pro day, and 20 players took the opportunity to perform for NFL personnel. The throng included head coaches Brian Schottenheimer of the Dallas Cowboys, Aaron Glenn of the New York Jets, Kellen Moore of the New Orleans Saints, and Zac Taylor of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Red Raiders royalty in the form of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was on hand. New England Patriots outside linebackers coach Mike Smith, the Coronado graduate who played and coached for Tech, put the Tech edge defenders through drills.
David Bailey, who had 14 1/2 sacks last season, is being projected as a high draft choice, perhaps even second overall, and the consensus has Height going in the top three rounds. Something such as that is what he hoped for when he arrived at Tech last year.
Each NFL team is allowed to bring in up to 30 players for interviews and medical evaluations during the pre-draft process. Height named seven teams with whom he has such a visit, including one on Friday with the Dallas Cowboys, and another with the AFC champion Patriots. He said he’s spoken with personnel from every NFL team at some point.
“Oh, man, it’s super exciting,” Height said. “I set my goal coming in here, and man, I was able to get it done. They put me in the position I’m in right now.”
Height had 6 1/2 career sacks in four seasons when he transferred to Tech. For the Red Raiders’ Big 12 champion Orange Bowl team, he turned it up to 9 1/2 sacks.
It was no magic formula that made the difference.
“Just continuing to stack days, trying to perfect my craft,” Height said. “Going out, doing film work, living in the training room, staying on top of my body. It was just the little things to be able to go out and execute at a high level.”
The pro day participants included 18 players from the 2025 Tech team, as well as former Red Raiders wide receivers Brady Boyd and Jordan Brown, who finished their careers at Utah State and Nevada, respectively. Of the 10 players who ran 40 yards for time — each with two sprints — Boyd was the fastest with unofficial times of 4.38 and 4.40 seconds, respectively.
Five of the eight Tech players who took part in last month’s NFL combine didn’t run. Defensive tackle Skyler Gill-Howard, who did only bench press at the combine, ran pro-day 40s of 5.06 and 5.08. Gill-Howard has been working back from the ankle injury that sidelined him from mid-October on last season.
“I think I performed above average, being five months post-surgery,” Gill-Howard said. “Doc told me I wouldn’t be 100% for a month, and I felt great today, 100% today, so I was really proud of what I did.”
Wide receiver Reggie Virgil ran 4.57 at the combine and 4.61 and 4.65 on pro day.
“I’m just blessed,” Virgil said. “It’s over, it was a great experience, but I’m ready to play football. That’s all that matters now.”
Some who weren’t invited to the combine did things to get attention. Safety Cole Wisniewski’s 20 reps on the 225-pound bench press were more than any defensive back at the combine this year. Linebacker Bryce Ramirez ran 4.72 and 4.64, did 31 bench-press reps, went 10 feet, 8 inches in the standing broad jump, and did the 3-cone drill in 6.72 seconds.
According to Tech research, his bench-press reps were more than any linebacker at the combine since 2019, and among this year’s combine linebackers, his 3-cone drill would have been fastest and his broad jump third best.
Linebacker Jacob Rodriguez said he was happier for Ramirez and other teammates than for himself.
“To see him come out here and run as well as he did, jump as well as he did, all the measurables — all the boxes that were unanswered — he answered all of them,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez, a unanimous All-American last year and winner of multiple national awards, said his 7 forced fumbles and 4 interceptions had stirred up interest in his pre-draft process.
“I like a lot of teams like how I can take the football away,” he said. “That’s a huge difference in winning football games is winning the turnover battle, and so that’s a big thing that we talk about is different ways to be able to do that, and then also where I can plug and play in different spots.”
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football players make their mark on pro day
Reporting by Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
