Jerome Smith strolled out of Manley Field House after Syracuse’s Pro Day and couldn’t hide the smile on his face.

After running a 4.84-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine in February, the former SU running back clocked a much quicker time to the NFL coaches and scouts who came to see him play on Wednesday.

Unofficially, he ran in the high 4.5-to-low-4.6-second range as part of a much-improved performance in front of scouts from 29 NFL teams.

With the NFL Draft quickly approaching in early May, Smith knew this was his last chance to fix his 40-yard time.

“My numbers at the Combine were horrible,” Smith said. “So I knew I had to come back here and redo things. I re-did everything. I did well.”

Before his workout started, the scouts told him he had to get rid of the fullback mentality. He couldn’t settle for strong, but slow running back. He had to show them he had speed.

But most of all, he had to revert to his old form, which he strayed away from while training at Bommarito Performance Systems in North Miami Beach, Fla., before the Combine.

It was there that he tweaked the placement of his hands and feet, and started his stance a little higher.

He said that he was going to surprise the people that expected him to run a 4.6. Instead, his altered starting motion caused his performance to fall flat.

“I’m sure those training facilities may know a whole lot more than I do, that’s what they do for a living,” said SU Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Performance Will Hicks. “If you’ve only got four or five weeks (to change a start), you’ve got to stick with what got you here.

“We’ve kind of got him back to what he’s always done here.”

After the Combine, Smith came back and trained exclusively with Hicks in Syracuse. He went back to his old running method to prepare for Wednesday.

And after he finally got the chance to run, his immediate thought was that he had run it slowly again. But when Smith was in the middle of doing drills, Hicks found him and told him what he had ran.

“It was a big weight off my back,” Smith said. “And hopefully I answered the last of the questions people had about my speed and what I could do.”

Smith said those distractions plagued him at the Combine. He did a bad job of blocking out things out around him — a problem he said he’s fixed.

He no longer looks at the mock drafts or listens to predictions of where he’s supposed to end up. The only thing he has on his calendar between now and draft day involves relaxing, working out and waiting to graduate, he said.

“I know that his number today as a whole will be better than what he did at the Combine,” said teammate Jay Bromley. “I’ve been with him, he’s been working hard just trying to come out here and improve.”

Smith knows he’s never going to rival the fastest running backs in the league. He compares himself to Frank Gore of the San Francisco 49ers and Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks. They’re not the quickest, but use their size and strength to get three or four yards on every play.

Smith told the scouts on Wednesday that that’s the mold he fits, and they’ll need a back like that to win games.

“They looked at me and they kind of nodded their heads and said, ‘Yeah,’” Smith said.

He stood after the event talking with reporters wearing his neon green Combine jersey. After the performance Smith had in Indianapolis, no one would blame him for wanting to forget every second of it — and the 4.84-second image that goes along with it.

Instead, it served as motivation.

And now that he’s finally put that day in the past with a much-improved time, he’s just ready to hear his named called on draft day.

“Hopefully that’s my last 40,” Smith said. “I ran a high 4.5, low 4.6 today so I don’t want to ever run another 40.”

Published on March 26, 2014 at 8:27 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3