Oklahoma LB DaShaun White Made the Most of His Pro Day Opportunity After NFL Combine Snub
NORMAN — Thursday represented a massive opportunity to DaShaun White.
The former Oklahoma linebacker was an NFL Combine snub, as he didn’t get the invite to head to Indianapolis.
So OU’s Pro Day was his shot to impress scouts and team personnel as the NFL descended upon the Everest Training Center in Norman.
“I’m happy to finally get today behind me,” White said. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for it forever.”
White went through testing and linebacker drills, running a 4.67 40-yard dash, a 4.44-second shuttle, performing 13 repetitions on the bench press and posting a vertical leap of 33.5 inches.
“I wouldn’t say it was a perfect day but I think that I did what I needed to do,” White said. “I didn’t come out here expecting perfect and so I kind of gave myself grace a little bit.”
Though he was pleased with his day, White said he did have to battle jitters at the start.
“Definitely probably put a little pressure on myself because I know without a combine invite,” he said. “I feel like today was my opportunity to showcase what I wanted to show. So I came out pretty nervous a little bit but I was kind of happy to have my teammates around me just to be able to cool me off a little bit and help me settle in.”
Current OU safety Key Lawrence was the first one to help White calm his nerves.
“He was probably the first one that said something like, ‘just chill bro. Just chill,’” White said. “Like I don’t even know how you know I’m nervous right now. But it was Key, Woodi (Washington)… Some of the guys I was running with as well.”
DaShaun White said he quelled his nerves after his first attempt at the 40-yard dash at OU's Pro Day on Thursday
Ryan Chapman / AllSooners.com
Pro Day allowed White to put the disappointment from not receiving a combine invite behind him, but it was a process to refocus in right after he found out he wouldn’t make the combine list.
“I felt like I had done enough (to get invited),” he said. “And so I kind of had to come back to myself and get rid of the sort of entitlement and kind of take it as the way it was. You can’t control everything, and so just trying to control what I can.”
Now, the initial emotions from the snub will just serve as motivation to push White further throughout the rest of the draft process and into whatever the summer holds.
“I still kind of feel some way about it,” he said. “I don’t know if that feeling will ever go away, but I think that kind of using it to fuel me through this offseason, just working out and stuff like that going forward.”
Once White started to work with teams and enter conversations with scouts, his positional versatility throughout college has given him a few different paths forward.
“I’m hearing both things about playing maybe safety and maybe linebacker,” White said. “… I’ve heard a ton of will (linebacker) and also some box safety.
“I’ve always felt like I’ve been pretty good in coverage… So I was kind of prepared for this last year before it came.”
Whatever lies ahead, White made the most his Pro Day stage on Thursday morning.
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