Ex-Oregon offensive lineman Max Unger recently came back from the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, where he was one of seven Ducks to participate in the week’s worth of medical tests, drills and interviews. He ran the third-fastest three-cone drill and 20-yard dash, and is projected as a second-round pick. He returned to Los Angeles on Saturday night, where he’ll stay until he returns to Eugene for pro day on March 12. After one of the most stressful four days of his life, as he said, the Daily Emerald caught up with Unger.
ODE: You trying to rest now?:
MU: “I’m taking a day off. I think I deserve it. I didn’t go work out today; I pretty much just hung out. It was good, though. How do I describe it? It was probably one of the most stressful four days of my life. I mean, the medical exams are a little long – they’re really long, they took up a whole day but, as far as the field work went, you know, it was just like five hours. It drug on for so long and it was the last thing we did.”
ODE: How did team interviews go?:
MU: “I met with the eight teams the first night and 12 teams the second night. For the most part we watched film from last year and asked what I was doing (on the plays) and tougher questions.”
ODE: Was it cool meeting coaches and general managers?:
MU: “Oh definitely, it was very, very cool. You see these guys on TV all that often and you’re in a room where you meet them. I would say Andy Reid of the (Philadelphia) Eagles, a bunch of other guys.”
ODE: How stressful was the process?:
MU: “There is some pretty nerve-wracking stuff. I never really got too nervous before games but I was pretty nervous when we went out there because on benching we were up on a stage with stadium seating around the stage. Everybody’s kind of staring at you and you have to start benching.”
ODE: All your training has been focused on the combine, so anything you weren’t ready for?:
MU: “We were set up pretty much for everything. The Wonderlic (the famed aptitude and intelligence test over 12 minutes) was actually pretty tough. It’s not exactly easy, but everything else we’d done before so that was nice.”
ODE: Was there any downtime?:
MU: “Oh yeah, we had downtime, but it was just a lot of we’d be waiting for an hour for no explanation for what we would be doing or what was next on the schedule. We didn’t exactly know what we were doing next.”
ODE: What was it like with the Andre Smith saga? (Smith, an offensive lineman and top prospect from Alabama, left the combine unexpectedly Saturday.):
MU: No one really knew; we lined up in the morning and he wasn’t in the lineup. Sometimes guys don’t get a wake-up call so they sent someone to his room and he never showed up. When we were running our 40s (yard dashes) it was announced that he left and guys were thinking he made a pretty poor decision. But we didn’t really talk about it.”
– As told to Andrew Greif
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