GAINESVILLE — Fifteen now-former Florida football players put their skills on display for representatives of all 32 NFL teams, as Tuesday was Pro Day for the Gators at the program’s indoor practice facility.

Offensive linemen Mason Halter and Trip Thurman; running back Kelvin Taylor; wide receivers Roger Dixon, Latroy Pittman, Demarcus Robinson and Valdez Showers; tight end Jake McGee; defensive linemen Jonathan Bullard and Alex McCalister; linebackers Anthony Harrell and Antonio Morrison; and defensive backs Vernon Hargreaves, Keanu Neal and Brian Poole all participated to varying degrees.

According to the experts at CBSSports.com, eight of the 15 are worthy of being drafted next month, led by Hargreaves — he is a lock for Round 1 and likely a top 10 target. Bullard (Round 2), Taylor (4-5), Robinson (5-6), Neal (6-7), McCalister (7), McGee (7) and Morrison (7) stand a good chance to have their names called, too.

The beginning of the workout was structured similarly to last month’s Scouting Combine, as the players were measured for height, weight, arm length, hand size and wing span.

Next was the testing, which included broad and vertical jumps, bench press (225 pounds), 40-yard dash and short- and long-shuttle runs.

(Scouts don’t share their stopwatches with the sports information department, so there are no official 40s or shuttle times to be reported. There were a few unofficial times, however.)

Finally, individual position drills wrapped up the event. The defensive players went first, followed by offensive players and then specialists.

weighed and measured

Hargreaves, Bullard and Neal declined to participate in any of the testing, choosing instead to let their performances in Indianapolis speak for themselves. Each took part in positional drills only.

McCalister must not have been pleased with his 34.5-inch vertical jump at the Scouting Combine. However, he only posted 32.5 inches at Pro Day. On the bright side, the undersized pass rusher has bulked up from 239 pounds to 245 in the last month. His wing span was an incredible 84 5/8 inches, which is wide enough to house even the tallest player on UF’s basketball team: 6-foot-11 center John Egbunu.

McGee didn’t do either of the jumps in Indy. He recorded a 28.5-inch vertical and a 9-foot, 6-inch broad jump today.

Like McCalister, Robinson wanted to improve upon his numbers at the combine, but it doesn’t appear that he did so. His vertical fell from 34.5 to 33.5, while his 10-3 broad jump only matched his previous number.

Taylor has dropped a little weight since the combine, trimming himself from 212 pounds down to 207. But the NFL legacy’s reps on the bench press slid from 17 to 15, his broad jump of 9-5 was the same and his 32-inch vertical wouldn’t have cracked the top 15 among running backs in Indianapolis — it would have placed behind three fullbacks, as a matter of fact.

sharing the spotlight

Not only was Tuesday a prime opportunity for all the players on the field, but it was also a bit of a showcase moment for second-year coach Jim McElwain.

Despite the fact that the Gators won 10 games and captured the SEC East this past year, it’s fair to say that McElwain’s team remains in rebuilding mode. UF hasn’t been as relevant nationally in recent times, as the depth of the SEC West — by far the toughest division in the country — has overshadowed the rest of the conference.

Pro Day was a chance for McElwain to tell future recruits that they can still make a three-, four- or five-year pit stop in Gainesville before going on to realize their ultimate dream of playing in the pros.

“Not personally, I just think (for) the University of Florida in general,” he said. “A lot of really good players come to the University of Florida, and obviously to have every single (NFL) team here and many representatives from each team speaks volumes for the kind of guys that we have in our program.”

In addition to NFL franchises, several scouts from CFL organizations were on hand to take a look at some of the prospects perhaps not quite talented enough to play at the game’s highest level.

let me at ’em

Hargreaves didn’t blow scouts away in Indianapolis with his measurables, as his size (5-10, 204) and 40-yard dash time (4.5 seconds) were merely adequate for the corner position.

Nevertheless, he might be the best player in the draft from a pure coverage perspective, as his footwork was nothing short of flawless Tuesday when going through positional drills — if you want quick-twitch muscles and fluid hips, he’s your guy. Former teammates were watching from the sideline and kept uttering buzzwords like “smooth” and “effortless” when referring to the Tampa native.

https://twitter.com/SaturdayJC/status/712306373573349382

When asked by Saturday Down South if he had any second thoughts about not doing any of the lifting, running or jumping at Pro Day, Hargreaves admitted to getting caught up in the moment at one point.

“Initially, no, because I was very satisfied with what I did at the combine,” he said. “But then when I got out here, I was like, ‘OK, hold on. I think I want to do some more stuff.’ But I just kind of kept it cool and did what I had to do.”

It was almost unfair to the other defensive backs during positionals, as Hargreaves was the first to run each drill and set an impossible standard for the other corners and safeties to match.

check your sources

Neal revealed that the decision to leave Gainesville after his junior season and declare a year early for the draft was “tough,” as he expressed lots of love for both the current and pre-McElwain coaching staffs.

But NFL talent evaluators apparently thought enough of the 6-foot, 211-pounder to give him peace of mind that he could indeed hang up his orange and blue for good.

“When I was coming out, I was hearing second (round),” Neal said.

Answering a follow-up question about his current status this much closer to the draft, the hard-hitting safety suggested that he’s moving up draft boards across the league.

“It’s (now) late first, early second,” he said.

It may be time to wonder who has been in Neal’s ear lately, as the analysts at NFLDraftScout.com see him as little more than a sixth- or seventh-round prospect. While he gets high marks for being “highly physical” and an “aggressive tackler,” he needs “mechanical work” when attacking the line of scrimmage and must “improve his discipline” in coverage.

The difference in guaranteed money for a second-rounder vs. a sixth-rounder on a rookie deal is not insignificant, plus it’s hard to make up those dollars even if Neal earns another contract down the road.

calling all quarterbacks

The receivers weren’t given much of a chance to strut their stuff Tuesday, as the Gators didn’t have an NFL-caliber quarterback on hand for Pro Day.

Actually, they didn’t even have an FBS-caliber passer at their disposal. Doing the throwing was Kade Bell, an invitee from FCS-level Jacksonville University — and the son of one-time Florida signal caller Kerwin Bell. Generously listed on the official site for JU athletics at 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds, many of the media on hand thought he was a punter until he started getting his left arm loose before positionals.

Former UF great Chris Doering, who was covering the event for SEC Network, sympathized with Dixon, Pittman, Robinson and Showers.

“It’s difficult,” Doering told Saturday Down South. “I know I sometimes had problems catching passes from a lefty, so that was something they probably didn’t realize they were going to have to do. But the four guys that ran routes here today, I thought they did a good job and proved to people that they can play a little bit.”

Armchair analysts judge a wideout in drills like these simply by his ability to reel in the reception, but Doering pointed out that actually securing the pigskin is overrated from a scout’s point of view.

“It’s the least important thing,” he said. “You don’t have control over how the ball is thrown. Obviously it’s the easiest thing to see and you want to make the catch if you can, but scouts wants to see athleticism. They want to see footwork. They want to see precise routes. Guys were probably asked to run some routes they didn’t run in college, like we saw a lot of the skinny post today.”

When SDS asked if there was ever any talk about Jeff Driskel, who started his career in Gainesville prior to transferring to Louisiana Tech in 2015, returning to throw at Pro Day, McElwain said there wasn’t.

However, McElwain did say that Driskel “certainly would have been welcome” had the call been made.

Driskel threw for 4,033 yards and 27 touchdowns this past year for the Bulldogs, and he raised some eyebrows at the Scouting Combine when he said that he could have put up similar stats for McElwain.

extra points

  • Many former Gators currently playing in the NFL were in attendance, including Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd and Washington Redskins running back Matt Jones.
  • A Florida beat writer told Saturday Down South that early enrollee Kyle Trask has performed well so far in spring practice at the quarterback position, although Purdue transfer Austin Appleby doesn’t look like he belongs.
  • Both Pittman and Robinson fielded punts on one of the practice fields outside, although Robinson looked much more natural catching the ball.
  • Neal’s hands were a hot topic among reporters, as they measured an oven mitten-like 10 3/8 inches.
  • Hargreaves confirmed that he will be attending the NFL draft in Chicago, but he’s not much of a hugger and will probably just shake hands with commissioner Roger Goodell when on stage.