Cam Skattebo gave interested viewers a sight to behold with a 39.5-inch vertical leap at the NFL Scouting Combine but kept others waiting by skipping most other drills, most notably the 40-yard dash.
ESPN NFL draft analyst Matt Miller told Arizona Sports on Friday the time shouldn’t matter at all, though, because he has shown everything he needs to on the field already.
“Honestly, I don’t know that a 40 time matters so much for him. Honestly, like are you healthy is the biggest thing. The rest is on tape,” Miller told Burns & Gambo. “So he kind of is who he is at this point. And it’s both a good and bad thing, right? That there aren’t really any unknowns when it comes to his evaluation, which makes him a pretty easy guy to to figure out.”
Skattebo’s body of work gives scouts a break they might not get in cases of “upside guys” who maybe showed a valuable trait but didn’t earn the opportunities to showcase that trait consistently on the field, Miller said.
To that point, Skattebo averaged a staggering 6.9 yards per play from scrimmage across 338 total plays in a season that ended with him top-5 in Heisman voting.
For comparison’s sake, Mark Ingram — who NFL Network’s Kyle Brandt compared Skattebo to in a recent epic rant — averaged 6.6 yards per play from scrimmage across 303 total plays as he won the Heisman for his 2009 campaign.
Skattebo also edged Ingram in rushing and receiving yards, with 53- and 271-yard advantages, respectively. He also had four more rushing touchdowns while they tied with three receiving touchdowns. He did all this while playing in one fewer game.
Skattebo finished season on a high note
It also helped Skattebo’s case that he produced as well as he did against competition like Texas to end his season, totaling 143 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, 99 yards on eight catches through the air and a 42-yard touchdown pass in the put-the-team-on-your-back performance in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.
“There was no better defense in the country than Texas, especially against the run. And those Longhorns, like they should’ve packed a lunch, they didn’t know what they were getting with him, man,” Miller said. “That Texas defense is going to have like 10 dudes drafted eventually, you know. It’s just like okay, I think we know who Cam Skattebo is at this point.”
He speculated about whether the running back will end up running the 40-yard dash at either the ASU pro day or the Big 12 Pro Day in Frisco, Texas, but he added that even if he doesn’t, he wouldn’t knock him down his own board because of it.
“I think it’s late-round three, early-round four,” Miller said of Skattebo’s projected draft range as of March 7.
The first round of the draft begins on April 24 with the second and third rounds on April 25, seven weeks away from today, and the final four rounds on April 26.