Connect with us

College

Rutgers Pro Day: Linebackers Showcase Talent

Rutgers linebackers (Kaiwan Lewis, Quentin Gause, and Steve Longa) shaking hands with their position drill coach during Rutgers Pro Day / Photo - Jeff Auger, DoubleGSports

Rutgers linebackers (Kaiwan Lewis, Quentin Gause, and Steve Longa) shaking hands with their position drill coach during Rutgers Pro Day / Photo – Jeff Auger, DoubleGSports

Steve Longa, Quentin Gause, and Kaiwan Lewis, Rutgers’ three starting linebackers this past season, all showcased their talents inside the Indoor Practice Bubble Wednesday as the school hosted their football Pro Day.

In front of representatives of 28 NFL teams, and one MLB team (Kansas City Royals), the trio did all the tests and field drills as part of an interview to get to the next level alongside eight other former Scarlet Knights: Sam Bergen, Kyle Federico, Paul James, Keith Lumpkin, Djwany Mera, Joey Roth, Savon Huggins, and Gary Nova.

The redshirt junior Longa went to the NFL Scouting Combine last month in Indianapolis, Ind., and improved on his numbers from a couple weeks ago.

Longa still stood at 6-foot-1, but dropped from 241 pounds at the Combine to 235 pounds. And as he slimmed down, he also trimmed his 4.78 second 40-yard dash in Indy to 4.68 seconds. Longa also improved his 3-cone drill (7.50 seconds to 7.35 seconds) and 20-yard shuttle (4.56 seconds to 4.23 seconds) numbers. In addition, despite the lesser weight, Longa upped his bench press from 19 reps to 21 reps.

httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsXGuX4NA04

The 2015 team defensive MVP finished his career “On the Banks” starting every game he played in three seasons. He only missed one game. The Cameroon native finished with an astounding 342 total tackles, including 17 for loss and seven sacks. Longa can run, as shown by his numbers, and is an effective downhill player who tackles well. He spent time at both the mike and weakside spots at Rutgers.

Longa said he is in talks with teams for more private workouts, but it is too early to tell to be optimistic about his chances. He did reveal that he got positive feedback however and said he helped himself today.

LB Steve Longa running a drill during Pro Day / Photo - Jeff Auger, DoubleGSports

LB Steve Longa running a drill during Pro Day / Photo – Jeff Auger, DoubleGSports

“Definitely. Every time I get an opportunity to do this my numbers just keep on getting better,”the all Big-Ten coaches honorable mention and third-team (media) honoree said after his workout to the media. “I’m just relaxed and I feel better every time.”

Gause dropped a couple passes during his position drills, but he is known as a better run-stopper than coverage linebacker anyway from his strongside spot. The redshirt senior tallied 23 reps on bench press, which tied for second with 6-foot-7 offensive lineman Lumpkin, and behind the fullback Bergen (28 reps). The 6-foot, 232-pounder also showed explosiveness, finishing first in the vertical jump at 36 inches. By comparison, the leader at the Combine was Travis Feeney (Washington) with 40 inches. He also was tops in the 3-cone drill (7.00 seconds), 20-yard shuttle (4.15 seconds) and 60-yard shuttle (11.53 seconds). He also put up a respectable 4.75 second 40-yard dash.

He boosted his stock with his performance today.

LB Quentin Gause during Rutgers Pro Day / Photo - Jeff Auger, DoubleGSports

LB Quentin Gause during Rutgers Pro Day / Photo – Jeff Auger, DoubleGSports

“This is my Combine,” Gause said. “You get one shot at it and you don’t get to do it ever again. One shot. The window of opportunity is that small. I really took advantage of it.

“I looked at the numbers from the Combine and I looked at what I wanted to achieve, and my goals looked like they were way better than that. Hopefully I achieved what I set out to do, and I feel like I did. Seeing those numbers motivates me to be better.”

Lewis, a native of New Jersey, was a graduate transfer coming over from South Carolina after playing for the Steve Spurrier. The St. Joe’s (Hammonton) product spent one year at Rutgers and started all 12 games at middle linebacker, registering 69 tackles, good for second on the team behind Longa (117).

Lewis checked in at just under 6-foot-1, and 226-pounds and was  clean during field drills, but was the slowest out of the three main linebackers in the 40-yard dash (4.92 seconds).

“I felt like I did pretty well today,” Lewis said. “I killed the drills. I feel like I stayed fluent, smooth, and got in-and-out of my breaks today and showed off the football aspect of it.”

LB Kaiwan Lewis testing in the vertical jump / Photo- Jeff Auger, DoubleGSports

LB Kaiwan Lewis testing in the vertical jump / Photo- Jeff Auger, DoubleGSports

Longa said his time at Rutgers helped him learn the game of football even better and everything that comes with being professional. And I’m sure he can speak for everybody on the team.

“There’s a reason why New England likes Rutgers guys,” Longa said. “They see it and they know. Not a lot of people get football, but Rutgers players get football. We study football and take it seriously. You can have all the freakish ability in the world, but if you don’t know football, it’s going to be tough for you to get on the field. We get football.”

Stay with DoubleGSports.com as we post more content from the Pro Day.

Follow Chris @ChrisWasky on Twitter

1 Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

More in College