Steve Jones

@stevejones_cj

Louisville running back Brandon Radcliff – a multi-year starter and 903-yard rusher this past season – expected he'd done enough as a college football player to warrant an invitation to the recent NFL scouting combine.

When he wasn't in the first wave of players invited to the NFL draft's biggest audition stage in Indianapolis, he began to get worried. Then he wasn't among the second set of invitations either.

Reality set in. If Radcliff was going to make it to the NFL, he'd have to get there without the benefit of a combine tryout.

"It was a little devastating," he said. "I was down for about five minutes."

Radcliff's spirits raised with the encouragement of family and friends, and he turned his attention to training for U of L's pro day, which took place Thursday with representatives from 30 NFL teams on hand at the Trager Center.

"It was definitely a motivation for me," said Radcliff of not getting a combine invite. "It was fuel for my fire. I expected to get one just because those guys who (did get invited), I felt I could go there and compete with those guys. It would have put me at a level playing field. ... But when I didn't get that invite, it just gave me fuel to go out there and do a little bit better – or a lot better. I just wanted to go out there and outwork those guys."

Radcliff watched every day of the combine on television, writing down and keeping track of the times and measurements of the running backs. He made the best marks his goals as he trained in his hometown of Miami.

Unless Thursday's pro day drastically raised his stock, Radcliff shapes up as a long shot to get drafted. He's ranked the No. 55 running back and No. 757 player overall in the draft class by CBSSports.com.

But Radcliff is eager for his shot to prove himself and said he'll do everything he can to try to make it in the league.

"I've been playing football since I was 5 years old, and this is the ultimate level," he said. "When you're doing something, no matter what it is, you always want to reach that peak, and for me, that's the NFL. It's a living dream. It's a dream that can come true. It's a living testimony to that if you work hard at it, you're right there at the doorstep."

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And Radcliff appeared to acquit himself well Thursday when his chance finally came. Weighing 207 pounds – about five pounds below his senior-year playing weight – Radcliff looked trim and muscular as he went through drills as one of 19 former U of L players working out.

There were no official times announced as dozens of scouts and observers used their own stopwatches, but some unofficial times in the area near the finish line had Radcliff's 40-yard time in the low 4.5-second range.

Radcliff said one person told him he'd clocked him in the 4.4s, and obviously, Radcliff said, that was the time he hoped would get designated the consensus among the scouts. Only eight running backs ran a sub-4.5 at the combine.

"But anything they give me, I know I'll be satisfied," he said, "because I know I worked my tail off."

Always one of Louisville's best pound-for-pound performers in the weight room, Radcliff completed 24 reps of 225 pounds on the bench press at Thursday's pro day. That would have tied for second-best among all running backs at the combine and been worse than only Oklahoma's Semaje Perine's 30. (He would have had 26, but it was ruled that he didn't get the bar all the way up on two of the tries.)

Radcliff didn't say what his vertical jump was at pro day but admitted with a smile that it wasn't that good.

"I look at vertical as a basketball thing, man," he said with a laugh. "You'll never see me jump over a guy. I'll probably make a move, but jumping isn't in my game. ... (Vertical jumps) show explosion, but I have explosion in other ways. Just click play on the film, and they can tell all that stuff."

He also was among the backs, receivers and tight ends who ran routes and caught passes Thursday from former U of L and NFL quarterback Chris Redman, who was brought in to make the throws.

Radcliff said he's also "all in" on the potential of trying to make an NFL team as a special teams player, if it means returning kicks, playing on coverage teams or blocking for others.

"I'm practicing every special team," he said. "... I'll tell the coach, 'Teach me how to tackle a little better, so I can stay out there, man.' Anything I do to get my name a little more in the coach's ear, I'm down for it."

Though the environment of pro day – dozens of people quietly watching and evaluating a player's every move – can be intimidating, Radcliff said he felt loose and well-prepared.

"If you work hard – 100 days, 100 nights – you get a little flow, and you've got to come out here and not be so tensed up," he said. "That's where a lot of guys go wrong. They feel, 'If I mess up on this, my whole day is hurt off that.' You've just got to keep a level head."