INDIANAPOLIS — Thursday is Day 2 of the NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Quarterbacks, wide receivers and tight ends arrived Wednesday and spoke to the media today. Defensive linemen and linebackers arrived today for measurements and medical examinations. They will be speaking to reporters Friday.

Both groups are available to meet with teams tonight for interviews, as are the offensive linemen, running backs, punters and kickers.

Here are the news, notes and quotes with regard to the best conference in America.

brotherly love

Brandon Allen has exhausted his eligibility at Arkansas, but his family could still hold on to the starting quarterback job in Fayetteville. Austin Allen, Brandon’s younger brother, has sat behind his older sibling and watched him develop into a potential NFL draft pick — along with Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott, he’s one of only two SEC passers at the Scouting Combine.

Brandon Allen believes Austin Allen can do what it takes to follow in his footsteps.

“I think he’s got a good shot (of starting for Arkansas),” Brandon Allen said. “He’s been the backup for two years, so he’s got the experience. He’s got the upper hand there. He’s a good player. He’s a tough player. He’s a good guy, and he’s very smart. He’ll be able to win that job.”

Austin Allen is going to have to beat out USC transfer Ricky Town, though, among others. While Town was a heralded four-star prospect coming out of high school, Austin Allen was a below-the-radar three-star recruit.

“It’s going to be a competition,” Brandon Allen said. “They’re not going to hand it to him. The other QBs are trying to win that spot just like he is, so it’s going to be a good competition and I’m excited to watch it.”

light at the end of the tunnel

Ole Miss wide receiver Laquon Treadwell is perhaps the best player in the draft at his position, which is a testament to just how hard he worked to come back from the devastating knee injury he suffered in 2014.

While Chad Kelly was certainly an upgrade over Bo Wallace at quarterback in terms of arm talent, that shouldn’t diminish Treadwell’s impressive stat line: 82 receptions for 1,153 yards and 11 touchdowns.

The rehab process was long and arduous, sometimes so much so that he never even made it back to his own bed.

“It was night and day,” Treadwell said. “From six in the morning to eleven at night, sometimes I would sleep in the facility and just stay up there and watch film and watch myself before and just try to get that comfort level, that confidence back.”

Listening to Treadwell speak at the podium in Indianapolis, it’s possible that his injury — and subsequent comeback — helped him become an even better player in the long run.

“It all made me the person I am today,” he said, “that I just don’t take the game for granted.”

walking the straight and narrow

Several prospects have hurt their draft stock dramatically by finding trouble in college for one reason or another.

Florida wide receiver Demarcus Robinson, for example, potentially has first-round talent at 6-foot-1 and 204 pounds — his ability to stretch the field vertically is coveted by any team. However, no general manager can justify using a high pick on him since he was suspended by the Gators four times for various trangressions.

Robinson sounded contrite when speaking to reporters, but every draft prospect is coached on how to properly answer such questions.

“I know I made mistakes, and I know I learned from my mistakes,” he said. “It’s just telling the truth and getting it all out there in the open so I can just let everybody know I’m not the same person I was three years ago.”

Late-round draft picks have a much shorter leash in the pros because there isn’t as much money tied up in the decision to select them. Robinson likely will be given one opportunity to prove he’s changed, not four.

desperate times, desperate measures

If Auburn wide receiver D’haquille Williams was in Indianapolis a year ago, there’s a chance he’d be in the conversation for Round 1. At 6-foot-2 and 224 pounds, he plays even bigger than he looks due to his tendency to block out defensive backs like a basketball player securing a rebound.

But similar to Robinson, his résumé is littered with disciplinary action, including his dismissal from the Tigers by coach Gus Malzahn this past October.

“If I didn’t get in any trouble, I know I’m a legit first-round pick,” Williams said. “But God’s got other plans. I’m a first-round pick no matter what, but off the field I’m a seventh-round pick. My character is a seventh-round pick.”

Williams came off as quite sincere when admitting his mistakes at the Scouting Combine, even more so than Robinson, although there was a hint of desperation in his voice, too.

“I’m just happy to be here,” he said. “It’s a blessing to be here. Whatever team picks me, first through seventh round, it don’t really matter — undrafted. Whenever I get my opportunity, I’m just going to prove that I belong.”

back to basics

Offenses like Auburn’s come under criticism in NFL circles for not resembling how the game is played professionally. Specifically, the traditional route tree run by receivers is sometimes thrown out the window in a spread-type system like the one the Tigers employ.

If wideout Ricardo Louis wants to move up the draft board, he would be wise to master one pattern in particular. The way he ran it on The Plains is different from what he’ll be asked to do Saturday during his Scouting Combine workout.

“The comeback is a lot deeper in the league,” he said. “You really have to focus on coming out of the break, dropping your hips. A lot of those things play into running that route, and that’s one thing I really have to learn to focus on.”

A comeback — typically signified as a “3” on the route tree — is when the receiver mimics a fly pattern straight up the field before breaking hard to the outside. It’s called a “comeback” because the pass catcher needs to come back to the ball in order to help create separation.

As a matter of fact, the comeback is a primary tool to evaluate quarterbacks in Indianapolis, as not all of them are used to throwing 18-yard ropes from the middle of the pocket to the shadow of the boundary.

calm, cool and collected

Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott may not be a first-round talent, but he gave a first-round interview at the Scouting Combine. Through two days at Lucas Oil Stadium, you would be hard pressed to find a more impressive showing at the podium than the one given by the former Bulldog.

While the majority of the conversation revolved around his on-the-field accolades, and deservedly so, this reporter decided to ask him about his many philanthropic endeavors — it’s quite a long list for such a young man. Imagine just how much more good he can do in the community with an NFL paycheck in his pocket and the increased public profile that comes along with it.

“It’ll be exciting,” Prescott said. “I’ll be able to reach more people with doing that work. And to me, it’s all about helping others and what I can do for those who are supporting me, or maybe even not having anything to do with me that just need a helping hand, need a smile that can help their day or just help them out. It’ll be exciting to be able to help more people.”

When asked where his charitable nature comes from, he didn’t hesitate to answer: his mother. Unfortunately, Peggy Prescott succumbed to colon cancer in 2013, but she clearly was around long enough to teach her son about what’s truly important in this world.

“She just gave back to people, always had a smile on her face, was optimistic about everything in every situation, and it just kind of carries down,” he said. “Just watching her allows me to carry through life the same way.”

minor setback

South Carolina wide receiver Pharoh Cooper revealed to the media that he will not be running the 40-yard dash in Indianapolis.

“I strained my quad early in the process,” he said. “I tried to get back running last week, and it was just too tight. It was about 85 percent, but I’ll be doing everything else besides the 40.”

The former Gamecock is getting second- and third-round grades from a lot of talent evaluators, but they’ll have to wait a few weeks for his Pro Day in order to test his straight-line speed.

strong like bull

Missouri’s Connor McGovern posted the second-best performance on the bench press among offensive linemen, recording 33 repititions at 225 pounds. However, he’ll likely be disappointed with that number. He told members of the media Wednesday that his personal record is 40 — he hoped for a similar score in Indy.

Christian Westerman of Arizona State is presently atop the leaderboard with 34 reps. Oregon State defensive tackle Stephen Paea, who did an unbelievable 49 in 2011, holds the all-time mark.

time to shine

Alabama running back Kenyan Drake never got a chance to be the featured ball carrier in Tuscaloosa, as he had to contend with the likes of T.J. Yeldon and Derrick Henry on the depth chart. Yeldon was a back-to-back 1,000-yard runner in 2012-13, and then Henry set an SEC record with 2,219 yards this past season.

Drake topped out at 694 as a sophomore behind Yeldon in 2013, although he did average 6.4 yards per carry during his four-year career with the Crimson Tide.

The 6-foot-1, 210-pounder may have been a complementary piece in college, but don’t ask him about repeating that role in the NFL.

“I want to be an every-down back,” Drake said, “so I don’t know how to answer that question.”

When another reporter followed up with a question about him perhaps being part of a “thunder and lightning” approach in the pros, Drake simply repeated himself: “I want to be an every-down back.”

what’s up, doc?

There are a lot of Scouting Combine insiders that will tell you the on-field drills and 1-on-1 interviews aren’t overly important for a draft prospect. Perhaps the best thing a player can do in Indianapolis is be given a clean bill of health.

A player like Georgia running back Keith Marshall, for example, entered the draft following an injury-plagued career — knee ailments, specifically — in Athens.

“Medicals went great,” he said. “All the teams, I didn’t have any re-checks or anything like that. The doctors said (my knee) looks as good as it can, so I’m excited about that. I knew that coming in, but I’m excited I got cleared and all that and I’m ready to go.”

Players sometimes liken the experience to being prodded by aliens, which is something Marshall wasn’t familiar with at UGA.

“The medical examination process was very intense,” he said. “Every single team wants to check you and make sure everything’s good. It was a lot, and they were pulling on you a lot and stuff like that. But I knew to expect that. At Georgia we just had one doctor, so he checks you out and gives you the OK.”

Marshall sure looked healthy on the bench press. He posted the best number among running backs — not including the fullbacks — with 25 reps.