As he walked off the field at Lucas Oil Stadium in February, former LSU wide receiver Jarvis Landry was devastated. He'd trained for two months for the NFL scouting combine and felt he'd reached his physical peak at the perfect time, but when it was his turn to perform in front of the men who make the draft decisions, his body failed him.

Landry, one of the top wide receivers in this year's draft class, had strained his right hamstring while warming up to run the 40-yard dash but decided to run it anyway. He turned in a time of 4.77 seconds, leaving him dead last among an unusually deep class of receivers.

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"Man, I was hurt by it," Landry told Yahoo Sports. "After the combine I was kind of in disbelief, like, this is the biggest interview of my life and I got an incomplete."

As a player who prides himself on shining brightest on the biggest stages, Landry didn't know how to process the setback. As he realized he'd have to wait a month and a half to redeem himself at his pro day, frustration mounted.

"It was tough for me having to wait after the combine to prove to everyone else what I knew I was in the pit of my soul," Landry said.

Ultimately, it was a lesson his mother had been teaching him since he was a child that brought him peace: Prepare yourself diligently to take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself, and don't let the things you can't control rob you of your energy.

And when his opportunity came to prove his underwhelming performance at the combine was a fluke, he did just that. Landry ran the 40-yard dash in somewhere between 4.50 and 4.58 seconds, depending on which stopwatch you were looking at. He also ran crisp, smooth routes and, despite a few drops, turned in the performance he'd hoped he would.

"It was almost like I was so focused when I was getting ready to run that no one else was in the facility with me," Landry said. "It was the ultimate peace because I was so confident in what I was about to do. I just trusted that my hard work was going to get me the results I needed to answer any questions teams had left. "After I ran, and I got that thumbs up, it was like, 'I can breathe.' You know?

"The first thing I did, I walked over and embraced my mom, and she embraced me. It reminded me of all the sacrifices she made to help me get to this point.

"We looked at each other and we didn't have to say anything because we could see it in each other's eyes. She's who I do this for. It was one of the best feelings in my life."

Raised on the banks of the Mississippi River in tiny Convent, La., Landry has always called the Bayou State home. He played football at nearby Lutcher High School, where he earned national recognition as one of the top-rated wide receivers – a Rivals.com five-star player – in the class of 2011. During his sophomore year at Lutcher, he committed to LSU, and thus, to spending at least three years of his life after graduation about 50 minutes up the road in Baton Rouge.

When all was said and done, he had amassed 137 catches for 1,809 yards and 15 touchdowns to become one of the most productive wide receivers in LSU's history.

As a native son, Landry has done Louisiana proud. But in a few short days, an NFL team will obtain his rights in the draft, and in all likelihood, Landry will have to leave the turf he was raised on and learn what it's like to live away from "home" for the first time.

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