Jimmy Graham Combine Update

No love lost

Jimmy Graham has played football in only two of the past eight years, yet the former Miami Hurricanes tight end earned an invitation to the combine because NFL scouts are very intrigued by his 6-foot-7, 259-pound frame and basketball background. Graham played football as a freshman in high school, but had to give the sport up after he was adopted by a youth leader at his church and his new school didn't have a football program. He focused on basketball, and earned a scholarship to Miami. Because he was a starter, the Hurricanes wouldn't let Graham play football until after his basketball eligibility expired following the 2008 season. That gave him one year to make an impression, and Graham's potential as a seam-busting tight end was evident despite a few drops early in the season -- including one on national television against Virginia Tech. Graham said his passion for the game is unquestioned -- the only reason he didn't play for six years was the lack of opportunity. "I think when [scouts] look back and see that I turned down all of my pro basketball tryouts, and I turned down all my overseas money, they see I am sold out for football," Graham said. "I turned down a lot to come back to college and play this game. That proves in itself how much I love this game." Because he has so little game film for scouts to break down, Graham is under intense pressure to work out well Saturday. "For a player like me it's a little bit early," Graham said of where he might be drafted. "I'm a guy that has to post great numbers. We'll see after Saturday."

UM's Graham remembers
Tight end Jimmy Graham, a former basketball player at the University of Miami who emerged as an NFL prospect in his only season on the football team, had a couple of costly drops in the Hurricanes' 31-7 loss at Virginia Tech, his third college game. He hasn't forgotten.

"Big-time game and I kind of let my teammates down," he said. "That kind of changed me as a football player. From then on I didn't drop another ball, and the very next game I scored a touchdown. So it made me go back to the fundamentals of catching.

"I was so confident in how I could catch I stopped looking the ball in. In practice I'm catching everything with one hand; I felt I didn't have to worry about it. But it definitely got me back to the fundamentals, and since then I've been very successful."