By Blake Dowson
Riley McCarron was presumably done with football, at least in a sense of strapping on shoulder pads and playing in front of thousands of people.
There was no draft buzz surrounding the undersized receiver from Dubuque. His 42 catches for 517 yards and 4 touchdowns during his senior season certainly helped out the team, but any NFL scouts attending Iowa games weren’t there to see No. 83.After graduating in December, McCarron accepted a job in Kansas City working in accounting. That’s a success story for most former walk-ons — earn a scholarship, make an impact on the team, then graduate with a good job lined up.
However, after McCarron’s performance at Iowa Pro Day on Monday, there’s a chance he might be forced to put his accounting career on hold.
McCarron ran a 4.36 40-yard dash and jumped 40.5 inches on his vertical test.
“I had been to a couple Pro Days in the past here, so I knew what to expect,” McCarron said. “It felt good to run [the 40] … get the adrenaline going with all those scouts there.”
Once again, the scouts in attendance weren’t really in Iowa City to watch McCarron. They were there to watch C.J. Beathard, Desmond King, George Kittle, Jaleel Johnson, and other prototypical NFL athletes.
Scouts from every one of the 32 teams in attendance were forced to take notice, however, when McCarron lit up the clock.
His 4.36 electronically timed 40 would have placed him third at the NFL Combine this year, behind Washington’s John Ross and Ohio State’s Curtis Samuel. Ross set the Combine record by running a 4.22. Samuel ran a 4.31. Both could hear their names called in the first round of the NFL Draft.
McCarron’s vertical jump was the same, bested by only two wide receivers at the Combine.
The NFL never seemed the obvious next step for McCarron, who even into his senior season wasn’t a go-to pass catcher. It wasn’t until Matt VandeBerg was injured this past year that McCarron became the No. 1 guy.
Playing professional football wasn’t on his mind at all. It should be now.
“I always kept my goals short term. When you reach a goal, you raise the bar a little bit higher and push yourself that way,” he said. “You just take it a little bit at a time. So I never thought too much about the NFL. It’s obviously a dream, but not until maybe my last year did it ever cross my mind.”
McCarron was a safety valve for Beathard at times this season and was again for his quarterback at Pro Day.
It’s a good thing he got some time off in Kansas City to come back to Iowa City.
“You’re with your guys that you’re comfortable with,” Beathard said of Pro Day. “It was nice being able to throw with Riley [McCarron] and George [Kittle] and [Jake] Duzey and those guys.”
It’s not likely that McCarron hears his name called during the NFL Draft. However, with how well he tested at Pro Day, it’s quite possible some team takes a chance on him in free agency.
He’s earned that opportunity with the work he’s put in, on top of starting a new job after graduation.
If it works out, he will get to live out a dream.
“Being able to train here with Coach Doyle and be able to do something that you really enjoy, it’s not work at all,” McCarron said. “It’s just having fun. To be able to play football a little bit longer, extend it, it’s fun.”
