Nearly 15 months after suffering the offseason knee injury that caused him to miss the entire 2025 season, Tennessee star Jermod McCoy served everyone a timely reminder of what at the time made him the top cornerback prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft. There were questions about McCoy and why he didn’t work out at the NFL Scouting Combine a month ago, but after pointing to Tennessee’s Pro Day during his media session in Indianapolis, he backed it up. In the words of Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel, McCoy “looked like Jermod out there” while delivering a strong showing that certainly will cement his status as a first-round pick.
McCoy, who had a breakout sophomore season in 2024 when he earned All-SEC honors after transferring to Tennessee from Oregon State, said at the Combine that he had no limits physically and was itching to get back on the field, but wanted more training time before his all-important workout before NFL coaches and scouts.
The approach paid off on Tuesday afternoon as McCoy ran a 4.37-second 40 on his only attempt and added a 38-inch vertical jump and 10-foot, 7-inch broad jump before going through position drills that showed him turning, twisting and cutting on his healed knee.
“Looked like Jermod out there today,” Heupel said. “From his 40 to the vertical jump, did a great job testing, which we all anticipated. Great to see him back at 100%.
“Dealing with the adversity of last year and everything that he had to do to get back, just really proud of how he handled that process and ultimately how he performed today and set himself up to have a great draft day.”
Primarily a wide receiver in high school prior to his senior season, McCoy started five games as a freshman at Oregon State, where he faced some serious quarterback and wide receiver talent in the Pac-12, but fully blossomed after coming to the SEC. He showed his playmaking ability (nine pass breakups, four interceptions) and versatility in playing man and zone coverage. McCoy was physical on the edge and sticky in coverage.
But his career took a turn during an offseason workout back home in Texas in January 2025 when he went up to catch a pass and landed wrong, tearing his ACL.
McCoy might have made a late-season return last fall had Tennessee’s College Football Playoff hopes lasted a little deeper into November, but he instead never made it back, making his final game in a Tennessee uniform the Playoff loss to Ohio State when he gave up some big catches to Buckeyes star Jeremiah Smith.
That game and his subsequent injury did little to diminish McCoy’s draft outlook. Throughout the season he remained a widely projected first-round pick. That didn’t really change even as he pushed back his return to the field during the pre-draft process, but it’s still something he needed to do to make NFL teams fully comfortable with spending a valuable first-round selection on him.
Now McCoy has the Pro Day workout to pair with the stellar 2024 tape as evidence to present to NFL teams who need immediate cornerback help.
“It is a great Pro Day performance,” ESPN draft analyst Matt Miller said Tuesday on ESPN’s NFL Draft Daily. “(The) 4.38, to show the explosion in the vertical and broad jump as well, and then to get out there and do positional drills – McCoy did everything today, and there was some question, even this morning, from NFL scouts, what would he actually do after sitting out at the Combine. So this is a fantastic day for him to remind people, with some late buzz, that he was the top corner in this class and would have been, I think, the top corner in last year’s class had he been draft-eligible then.
“So obviously the ACL injury in January was unfortunate, but what a way to rebound. And again, late buzz is better than early buzz. To remind general managers about 20 days before the NFL Draft who you are, that you’re healthy – I think that momentum is really going to help him out.”
The 2026 NFL Draft is April 23-25 in Pittsburgh.