BULLITT

KELLY CRITICIZES OU AFTER PRO DAY MISHAP
Posted by Mike Florio on April 9, 2008, 11:18 p.m.

Oklahoma receiver Malcolm Kelly ran a slower-than-expected time in the 40-yard dash during his Pro Day workout on Wednesday.
And he’s now blowing more wind into that red flag by not taking responsibility for his so-so results.

According to the Associated Press, Kelly blamed the school for his performance, claiming that there was an unexpected change in the surface on which he ran.

“This is my life. You know what I’m saying? This ain’t no school. This ain’t no classroom. This ain’t got nothing to do with that,” Kelly said.
“This has to do with me; my family. This is what I do. I play football. And I’m supposed to come out here and run as fast as I can.”

Kelly says that he’d arranged to run on an Astroturf infield at the school’s indoor track facility. Instead, he ran on FieldTurf at the Sooners’ indoor football facility.

“I already had everything set up for where I want to do it at,” Kelly said. “I get out here and it’s a whole different deal.

“People want to say surface is surface, but it’s a lot more to it than that.
You have to think about how much ground time you have running on this mushy surface here and how much ground time you have on Astroturf.”

Fine, Malcolm. But what you’re missing here is that the scouts are aware of this, and so they add time when the surface is believed to be too fast.
Besides, given that no NFL games are played on Astroturf and many are played on FieldTurf, it makes much more sense for prospects to run on the current generation of plastic grass.

Kelly didn’t run the 40 at the Scouting Combine, due to a lingering quad injury. The surface at the RCA Dome is FieldTurf.

As to the quad injury, Kelly also criticized the Oklahoma medical staff for not accurately diagnosing the injury.

In our view, Kelly’s childish effort to push the blame for his performance to the school that invested plenty of time and money into him isn’t the best way to persuade
an NFL team to invest even more time and money.
Because if/when things don’t go well for Kelly at the next level, it’s safe to say he’ll be looking to point the finger for his failures and/or frustrations at the team.