ISD Draft Diary | Troy Pride Jr. Part III

Former Fighting Irish cornerback Troy Pride Jr. started four years at Notre Dame and is off to prepare for the 2020 NFL Draft. 

Throughout the process leading up to the Draft, Pride will log diary entries for Irish Sports Daily to document his experience, as told to Matt Freeman: 

The NFL Combine. What an experience. 

It's the dream of every player to compete under the bright lights in Indy, but it's a lot more than what you see on TV. 

It was completely different. The schedule was hectic. I never really knew what was coming next. It was a lot. There were schedule meetings, presentations, informal and formal meetings with teams, testing and much more. 

The Combine is exhausting and that's before you even do on-field workouts. 

The first day is meet and greets, orientation and some informal meetings. The weigh-in and drug testing was really the start of it all on the second day.

We then moved forward with doing stuff with your position leader. We continued to test throughout the week with the Wonderlic, bench press and meetings for different things. 

To try to really encompass everything - it was just a lot in a little bit of time. You try to rest when you can.

A lot is thrown into a couple of days, but it was also great to see my former teammates thrive and succeed. 

I met with teams at the Reese's Senior Bowl, so I was prepared for the formal meetings with organizations at the Combine. 

But, it was still intense. 

I had a meeting with the Minnesota Vikings and it was basically all of their personnel. The GM was sitting across from me and a defensive coach was asking me questions. The head coach and the defensive coordinator were at an angle sitting next to each other looking intently at every word I said. 

They had film up on the screen. They would ask a question and go on the film, but then the question they asked contradicts what is on the film.

It was a great experience. The interviews were fun and I tried to smile throughout the process. I had fun with it all and it was very interesting being part of it. 

Yes, I didn't run as fast as I wanted. It's truly just another form of adversity. I got back to my phone after running and didn't see the number I wanted to see. I didn't really do exactly what I wanted. Yes, it happened. 

There was a part of me that wanted to forget it all and just leave. 

There was a larger part of me that said to forget all of it and I have to go on to the next event. 

The day was far from over and I came to Indy to show my position work is better. I've been training with Clay Mack for months to show I'm a better defensive back. Not running a 4.25 that I wanted to run really made me intensify everything I did even more. 

When I didn't run what I wanted, I told myself it was okay and I can fix that at Pro Day. I knew for a fact I better not come out and look crazy during drills, or the day would be a bust.

In my head, I knew I had to do something well that day. I wanted to get into the drills and football stuff to prove myself - moving and flipping my hips and showing I had good feet even though my shoes were coming off. 

You find out who you really are when the intensity and adversity hits. Are you going to bounce back? I ran bad. I didn't run what I wanted to run. What am I going to do next? 

From there, it was drills and most guys were sitting down because they were done. I still had to do the broad jump and vertical. It was about compartmentalizing and being mentally tough to do everything to the best of my ability. 

I'm turning my focus to Pro Day on April 1st. A lot of scouts told me they had me at 4.3 at the Combine, but that's not what the screen says and everyone goes by the screen. 

I'm continuing to prepare for my drills to be the best defensive back I can be. I'll continue to work out and I've been working on some of my starts for the 40. I think there is some stuff I can fix with my 40 and I may want to re-run to see how well I can get the technique down and get back into a track mindset for a second. 

I may run the 40 at Pro Day along with my jumps. After a long field workout and running the 40, my jumps suffered a little bit. I had jumped better than that previously, so I know for a fact I can jump better. 

That's it for now. I'll see you guys at Pro Day! 

Pride out. 

ISD Draft Diary | Troy Pride Jr. Part I

ISD Draft Diary | Troy Pride Jr. Part II