Troy’s Xavier Moreland tries to impress scouts

TROY — Xavier Moreland has been trying to prove people wrong since he stepped foot on Troy’s campus as a walk-on five years ago.

Now, he’s trying to do the same for pro scouts who think he might be too small or too fragile.

Moreland, who had moved up to No. 1 on the depth chart at running back last preseason before injuries hampered his season, put up some of the best numbers at Troy’s second NFL pro day. The 5-foot-10 and a half, 189-pounder ran a 4.37 40-yard dash time, had the highest vertical jump at 41 inches and the best broad jump at 10 feet, 6 inches. The first pro day was held last week.

But there are still questions. He broke one collarbone before the start of the season and broke the other in the season finale against Arkansas State, though he returned to play in the New Orleans Bowl exactly two weeks after surgery. Moreland averaged 6.6 yards per carry, running for 226 yards as DuJuan Harris’ backup. He missed four games.

He said he’s about 85 to 90 percent recovered from his injuries, and sometimes it hurts when he sleeps. He can’t do real deep bench presses, but did do 17 reps of 225 pounds on the bench press.

Now, the hard part is finding his way into an NFL camp.

“I feel like if I can get in a camp, I can show off my game,” Moreland said. “I’ll keep training, keep praying and hopefully everything will work out.

“I always have to prove anything. It could be to scouts, my coaches, my teammates, everything. I’ve always felt like that.”

Moreland played on special teams early in his career — something he hopes will be an asset in a pro career — but moved to running back before the 2007 season. He finally cracked the rotation last year.

“The durability issue would be something that would concern (NFL people), but he was going into the season as the starter,” said Richard Shaughnessy, Troy’s strength and conditioning coach who works as a liaison between Troy players, agents, scouts, and puts on the pro days. “For him to make a camp, they’re going to have to look at his numbers. He ran in the 4.3-range two weeks in a row. I think it’s going to get him in a camp. I really do.”

McClendon has good workout: Former Carroll standout Steve McClendon, a starter at defensive tackle, gained the weight he needed and put on two good performances. He had surgery to remove swollen lymph nodes in his neck in 2007 and dropped weight, but weighed in at 302 pounds Thursday, up nearly 30 pounds from the 2007 season. He played at around 300 pounds in the fall.

“They wanted to see if I could hold the weight,” McClendon said. “I put on 305 and played well. You’ve got to be at 305 or better in the league. You can weigh 280 and get away with it in college. I’d rather be 305 to 310 and not get pushed out.”

He bench pressed 31 reps at 225 pounds last week

Martin moving past shoulder concerns: The top draft prospect for Troy this year is defensive back Sherrod Martin, who went to the Senior Bowl and NFL combine, but some people can’t seem to get past the fact he had two shoulder surgeries after the 2005 season and hand surgery early in the 2007 season.

“He looks like the guy from Operation (a popular board game for children),” said Rich Eisen of the NFL Network earlier this spring.

Martin missed the 2006 season to recover from the injuries, but Shaughnessy said there should be no problems going forward.

“Since the last shoulder (surgery in Feb. 2006), we’ve not had to change anything we’ve done,” Shaughnessy said. “He’s played on both of those. He’s not had any problems past that. I think (the NFL people) are going to find out that it’s not a problem.”

Other news and notes: Former Troy standout Leodis McKelvin, now with the Buffalo Bills, was in attendance. He’s completing his degree in sports management this summer. … Sun Belt all-conference tackles Dion Small and Chris Jamison are trying to make it at guard or center at the next level. Jamison
bench pressed a team-high 33 reps Thursday. … Defensive end Kenny Mainor weighed in at 222 pounds and ran in the 4.6-range coming off knee surgery for a torn ACL last fall.