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Standing under center, Travis Wilson signaled to Saiosi Aiono for the snap. He took a step back, looked left and tossed a dart to Kendal Thompson.
Thompson whipped around coming out of his route and saw the ball coming low behind him. Instinctively, he snapped his left hand out, caught the pass, turned around and kept on going upfield.
Nifty move for just learning the position.
"It's just something you kind of react to," Thompson said. "Being a former quarterback, I give Travis a hard time because you want every ball to be perfect. But I know when it hits a guy's hands, you want him to catch it."
The premise of Pro Day is to make every would-be NFL prospect uncomfortable and force him to perform anyway. On Thursday morning, Utah's Pro Day was no exception.
While Thompson was the one displaying on-field acrobatics, everyone on the play was trying something new: Wilson taking snaps from under center, and Aiono giving snaps under center.
While football comes naturally to them, all the former Utes were trying to prove they can do something that they haven't yet done.
Wilson might have had one of the better days in the bunch. He looked confident on his passes despite taking snaps from the line, which he didn't do much in his four-year career at Utah. He also put a higher release on his throws than his familiar side-arm delivery, hoping to give himself a hard look from teams if he goes undrafted, as most expect.
But in showcasing what's new, Wilson got an assist from an old friend: former Utah tight end Jake Murphy, who even once hit the turf for a diving catch.
"I needed somebody to come down and catch tight end routes," Wilson said. "It reminds me of back in the day when I was throwing to him."
A big part of Pro Day is the measurable drills, indicators of athleticism for which football experience is nearly non-applicable. Most of the players who ran the 40-yard-dash on Thursday ran it for the final time ever.
But drill specific training showed off: Receiver Kenneth Scott wowed with a 38-inch vertical leap, which would've been tied for the fifth-best mark at the Combine. After not running the 40 at the Combine, safety Tevin Carter showed he could scoot with an unofficial 4.53-second time, which would have been tied for fourth place in Indianapolis.
"Now I can eat whatever I want for the next few days," Carter said. "It's been a lot of water, lot of working out, man. I'm so happy I'm done with the track stuff."
No one may have helped himself out more than defensive end/linebacker Jason Fanaika, who had six more bench press reps than at the Combine, cut his 40-time by two-tenths of a second, and looked relatively fluid at linebacker, a position that he may move to at the next level. Linebacker Jason Whittingham also tested well, with top-three figures in the bench press, vertical jump, broad jump, 20-yard shuttle and 40-yard dash.
Both went with familiarity while training for Pro Day, working out at their respective high school gyms during the day and going home to their wives at night.
Meanwhile, players who haven't tested as well as they hoped, like linebacker Gionni Paul, are hopeful that they'll get a shot when scouts look at film of them doing what puts them most at ease: padding up and just playing football.
"I'm better than I ran today," Paul said. "Going forward, I'm just a football player. I'm an instinctual player, and I love the game."
Twitter: @kylegoon —
Top Utah performers at Pro Day
The top three performers in several drills at Utah's Pro Day event on Thursday (with the disclaimer that not all players participated in all drills):
Bench press • LB/DE Jason Fanaika (29 reps), LB Jason Whittingham (28 reps), DT Viliseni Fauonuku (27 reps)
Vertical jump • Kenneth Scott (38 inches), LB Jason Whittingham (35.5 inches), LB Gionni Paul (35 inches)
Broad jump • S Tevin Carter (10-foot-4), LB Jason Whittingham (10-foot-2), WR Kenneth Scott (10-1)
20-yard shuttle * • LB Jason Whittingham (4.1 seconds), RB Bubba Poole (4.2 seconds), QB Travis Wilson (4.25 seconds)
Three-cone drill * • WR Kendal Thompson (6.7 seconds), WR Bubba Poole (6.83 seconds), WR Kenneth Scott 6.84 seconds)
40-yard dash * • S Tevin Carter (4.53), LB Jason Whittingham (4.66), WR Kendal Thompson (4.69 seconds)
* Results are unofficial times, averages of several estimates