How the 40-yard dash could make or break Mizzou’s Emanuel Hall at the NFL Combine

Out of over 300 prospects at this week’s NFL Combine, former Mizzou wideout Emanuel Hall is in pretty unique company compared to most of them.

While a strong performance in multiple tests could vault a prospect’s draft stock, Hall’s prospects hinge on one event: the 40-yard dash.

It’s not that Hall isn’t fast. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Defensive backs from all over the Southeastern Conference can vouch for his speed, as he burned them on countless go routes during his MU career.

But a groin injury cost Hall four games in 2018 and has stuck with him through his pre-draft training. Hall caught a 50-yard pass from Drew Lock in the first half of the Liberty Bowl on New Year’s Eve but didn’t play the rest of the game. Shortly after the 50-yard catch, Hall said he got hit by a Oklahoma State defender in the groin on a slant route.

“Going into that game I was super aggravated, I couldn’t really practice that much,” Hall said. “After (the hit) I could hardly run. I could hardly walk to be honest. When I got to training it took about three weeks before I could really do anything.”

Hall has spent the the past few months at the Michael Johnson Performance Center in Dallas, where he said he worked on his explosiveness while also adding 12 pounds of muscle. Before heading to Dallas, the 6-foot-3 wideout could only do 10 reps in the bench press, but on Thursday he did 15.

At the combine, Hall said he’s met with about 16 teams, including the Bills, Titans, Packers and Colts.

Heading into Saturday’s wideout drills, Hall said he’s about 80 to 90 percent recovered from his groin injury, but it will still limit him to just the 40-yard dash and jumping drills. He plans to go through all drills at Missouri’s pro day on March 21.

When healthy, Hall said he’s able to run the 40-yard dash in 4.3 seconds. A strong time could boost Hall into the second or third rounds while a lackluster performance could push him to the final day of the draft. He added that he will be fully healthy when the draft comes and that the injury isn’t chronic. Doctors have told him he won’t need surgery and training for the draft has slowed his recovery, he said.

While Lock came back for his senior year to become more NFL-ready in Derek Dooley’s pro-style offense, Hall benefited in the same ways that his quarterback did.

Lock got a lot of questions about Hall during his news conference on Thursday and vouched for his former teammate, saying a lot of teams should pay attention to him if they’re not already doing so.

“Once everyone sees him run, sees the stride he has — he’ll run by anyone,” Lock said. “He’s definitely a little slept on right now, but I think after the testing, people will wake up about him.”

In Josh Heupel’s air-raid spread offense, Missouri’s wideouts only had around a dozen routes to run. NFL scouts thought Hall and Lock were only good at going long.

“My junior year it was almost like backyard football,” Hall said. “I’ve never experienced an offense like that. The receiver gets to choose the route. Having Dooley coming in with a true pro-style offense prepared me a lot more. The terminology was pro terminology. When I was going through meetings it came easier to me.”

Hall said if he left school early, the combine meetings would have come as a shock to him and left him unprepared to talk to teams about plays on the whiteboard.

Hall didn’t make any promises about running a 4.3 on Saturday, but was optimistic about testing out well, despite the health concerns.

“I think tomorrow a lot of special stuff is going to happen,” he said. “I’m not going to say the number, but I think we’re all going to be happy.”

This story was originally published March 1, 2019 at 5:09 PM with the headline "How the 40-yard dash could make or break Mizzou’s Emanuel Hall at the NFL Combine."