This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Folks expecting BYU's Ziggy Ansah to react wildly or celebrate much after he posted a nice little 40 time at the NFL Combine today just don't know the pass rusher from Ghana. That's just not Ansah's style. The Cougars' senior defensive end officially ran the 40 in 4.63 seconds at Lucas Oil Stadium on Monday, one of the better 40 times of all the defensive linemen tested. It was the sixth-best time among defensive linemen and the second-fastest time among guys who weigh more than 270 pounds. Perhaps more impressively, Ansah's 10-yard split time was 1.56, suggesting excellent explosiveness off the ball. Ansah also posted a 34.5-inch vertical jump and a 118-inch broad jump on Monday. So what will this do to his draft stock? Most draft boards seem to have him inching closer to the top 10. BYU senior offensive tackle Braden Brown is also participating in the NFL Combine. Go here for more on Brown's performance, although the picture accompanying his profile is obviously not Brown. NFL Draft analyst Mike Mayock has Ansah listed as the third-best defensive end in the draft, but doesn't think the position overall is one of the deepest in this year's draft. Here's what Mayock said about Ansah in a news conference on Sunday: "This is an interesting defensive end/outside linebacker class because a lot of them you are betting on the upside, and Ansah is certainly one of them. Minimal amount of football, average practice week at the Senior Bowl which is important to me; he was only average and then he dominated the game. There are a lot of questions about the guy, but you can‟t question his movement skills, his size and his motor. When people try to compare him to [Jason Pierre-Paul], I would take a step back. Even though he was raw, he was further along. Ziggy Ansah has that kind of ability but he‟s even more raw than [Pierre-Paul]. So at what point do you pull the trigger? A lot of times, good teams and playoff teams get better because guys get pushed down and then somebody picking in the late 20s says, 'We‟re pretty good.‟ How about San Francisco? A team like that is pretty good, maybe we can take the time to develop this kid. I don‟t know where he's going to go; I think he‟s going to go in the first round and he has phenomenal upside. It‟s just going to take a little time." Former BYU quarterback Brad Sorenson, who left the program as a walk-on and took a scholarship at Southern Utah University, is also at the NFL Combine. He caught Mayock's eye, apparently"[Brad] Sorenson, who I don‟t know anything about from Southern Utah, caught my eye a couple of times so I have to go check him out. Sean Renfree from Duke who didn‟t throw today is an underrated quarterback. This is a difficult class to figure out," Mayock said.