By Harry King
LITTLE ROCK — A drill to make Mitch Petrus more appealing to the NFL has nothing to do with technique, leverage, quickness, or other attributes normally associated with offensive linemen.
The former Razorback stands arm’s length from the 100 or so small squares that make up a 3-foot-by-3-foot board mounted on a wall. Randomly, a square lights up. Petrus is supposed to touch the square before it goes dark. Using the same apparatus, there is another version where a timer is in play and the light stays on until he locates it.
The board is necessarily sturdy. “I get all over it,” said the 300-plus-pound Petrus.
The idea is for the athlete to move his eyes rather than his head and use his peripheral vision, saving hundredths of a second in a sport where things are happening simultaneously and rapidly.
On other occasions, he’s in front of a TV screen, trying to ignore an animated picture or other distractions, and locate a two- or three-digit number that might be inside of a basketball or on top of an animal. For kids, the game is called I Spy and there are books galore with picture riddles that take several minutes to solve.
Petrus has 27 hundredths of a second.
It’s part of the preparation that Petrus and about a dozen other NFL hopefuls are undergoing at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. A question about the vision training was asked because an online article quoted former Indiana tackle Rodger Saffold as saying his initial reaction to the drill was: “Get out of my face, I’m gonna go lift some weights.” Later, he extolled the benefits.
Lifting is done in the afternoons, Petrus said. The mornings are for work on conditioning and mechanics that help the athletes improve in staples of the NFL combine such as the 40-yard dash, broad and vertical jumps, the shuttle run and three-cone agility drills. At this point, he could be picked anywhere from the third round to sixth round.
The off-field regimen includes reviewing the sort of things that will be on the 50-question Wonderlic Personnel Test at the combine. The athletes learn what type of questions they handle best and are told to answer those first and not to waste time fretting over others. There is a 12-minute time limit, Petrus said, and no one-minute warning.
He and the others are also being prepped for the interviews that have become increasingly important as NFL teams try to avoid character issues that can embarrass.
Petrus started leaning toward IMG after talking with former Arkansas teammate Alex Mortensen who consulted with his dad, Chris. Dave Butz, one of the agents under consideration, clinched the deal when he told Petrus that the agency he worked for had just completed a deal with IMG.
Petrus arrived in Florida a week after the Razorbacks’ Liberty Bowl victory and Butz’s agency is paying for the multi-week stay. “It’s a risk he takes,” Petrus said. “It is not a loan.”
At the combine next week in Indianapolis, Petrus should do well in the face-to-face if the NFL folks appreciate his sense of humor:
—Alarm clocks in the condo he shares with Kyle Calloway of Iowa?
“No, every morning they send a policemen in a car with a siren.”
—What’s the first thing you did when you reported to IMG?
“You have to run through a wall of fire. They want to see how tough you are.”
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.
