INDIANAPOLIS — The scene is several rooms of the lower lobby of the Omni Severin Hotel in downtown Indy. TCU receiver Quentin Johnston and Tennessee receiver Cedric Tillman are running alternating practice 40-yard dashes in a makeshift training center. Purdue quarterback Aidan O’Connell is stretching on the floor next to a television replaying a Steelers-Ravens game. Down the hall, a staff of nutritionists are putting together food plans for 99 scouting combine participants in which the amount of meat is measured in actual cows.
There’s a hot tub and a cold tub in a small fitness center, and in that same 40-yard dash place, there are massage tables and exercise bikes and treadmills aplenty. Tulane running back Tyjae Spears is leaping and hopping when he’s not running his own practice dashes, and guys are burning up those treadmills in frantic shifts as everybody gets ready for the biggest set of job interviews of their young lives.
