Ferris State CB Tavierre Thomas on NFL radars as draft approaches

They talked about it in the car on the way to practice, during workouts when none of the upperclassmen were around and in the hotel late at night before games when they’d compete to see who would fall asleep first and wake up earliest.

Usually, when Jevonte Alexander brought up the NFL, Tavierre Thomas brushed it off as “crazy” talk, at least for a walk-on cornerback like himself at Ferris State.

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“That’s like my best friend,” Thomas said during a workout at Total Sports in Wixom earlier this month. “We both played corner, and we used to always sit and talk about it like, ‘Man, we can go to the NFL and stuff.’ I’m like, ‘Man, you’re crazy. We ain’t going to the NFL.’ I just didn’t believe it until like my junior year.”

That’s when Thomas blossomed into a Division II All-American with six interceptions and 15 pass breakups. He followed with a second All-American nod last year (4 INTs, 18 PBUs), and now the NFL doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore.

Thomas is scheduled to take part in Michigan’s pro day Friday, where he’ll have an opportunity to impress scouts from every NFL team.

Already, he has private meetings with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Baltimore Ravens scheduled for Thursday, and lunch planned Friday with the Arizona Cardinals. He’s scheduled to make a top-30 visit to Arizona, too, and is hoping a strong pro-day performance might propel him into the later rounds of the draft.

“Just blessings,” Thomas said. “God just blessed me with an opportunity and I just ran with it. Every day I just wake up and just thank the Lord that he gave me the opportunity and I just try to seize the moment.”

Thomas received Division I interest from schools like Iowa, Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan coming out of Detroit Allen Academy, but faced with having to take out student loans to pay for school because of a low ACT score, Thomas decided to take an academic scholarship – he said he had a 3.8 grade-point average in high school – to Ferris State instead.

“I was planning on just staying for like a semester, get some high grades and then transfer to like Michigan State or somewhere like that,” Thomas said. “But I couldn’t sit out a whole year without football.”

Thomas played sparingly as a freshman, though Alexander said when his good friend finally made the travel squad, for a late-October game against Michigan Tech, it didn’t take long for him to make an impact.

“One day a guy had got hurt, he was a senior, he was a corner, and I was already playing as a true freshman and Tavierre, they called him down, they were like, ‘Black Magic, he might be traveling,’” Alexander said, referring to Thomas by his nickname. “I’m like, ‘Oh, they’re going to let my boy travel with us? Oh yeah.’ And the first game, he got a pick the first game, he had like (three) tackles on kickoff… We was balling. And ever since then it just took off. Every year, better and better, and we just talked about having dreams.”

Thomas had three picks as a sophomore, including one in the Bulldogs’ playoff loss to Grand Valley State, and last year was named GLIAC Defensive Back of the Year.

Alexander said Thomas could play safety in the NFL because of how hard he hits, while Thomas said he needs a good showing at pro day Friday — and a fast 40-yard dash — to prove to scouts he can make the leap from Division II.

He ran a hand-timed 4.39 seconds in one recent workout, and said watching his former Ferris State teammate Brady Sheldon play in two games with the Oakland Raiders as an undrafted rookie last year has hardened his newfound belief that he belongs in the NFL.

“My teammates, Brady Sheldon, Jacob Lampman (now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), Justin Zimmer (formerly of the New Orleans Saints), they used to always tell me like if you just work, all you need is an opportunity,” Thomas said. “And I seen Shelly — me and Shelly are real close — I seen him go to the Raiders. I seen that I’m like, ‘Man, I know I can have a chance now.’ And I’ve just been grinding every day, all day.”

Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Download our Lions Xtra app for free on Apple and Android!