FSU Football: Nyqwan Murray can only benefit from NFL combine

FSU football knows of at least one player who will be taking part in the annual event later this year, and he’s one who needs as much scout time as possible.

In close to three months, several former FSU football stars will hear their names called during the 2019 edition of the NFL selection meeting – more commonly known as the annual draft that will be taking place this year in Nashville. Before that takes place, hundreds of prospects will be in Indianapolis for the annual scoring combine.

Now, I have been the first person who is critical of the four day event inside Lucas Oil Stadium – mostly because I think that it is insane to think that a 96 hour process where the players are in shorts and shirts is used as more of a valuable scouting of a player for some over what you see on the field when the game is actually going on.

However, the combine does give some players who flew under a radar to get on the list of those who should get serious consideration for a pick – and one of those spent the last four seasons in Tallahassee as a member of the Seminoles.

Florida State Seminoles Football

On Thursday, three former FSU football stars – Brian Burns, Demarcus Christmas and Nyqwan Murray – were among the almost 340 players who were invited to the annual event. While Burns is almost surely to go in the first and second round and Christmas is likely set for the middle of the draft, the one offensive Nole can benefit the most.

Murray will get a chance to show off his skills for all 32 teams – and after the performance of the offense for FSU football last season, any chances he can get to show that what took place was just an unusual occurrence will help his stock.

Yes, the passing game finished in the top 30 of the FBS last season but was a part of an offense as a whole that was in the bottom quarter of that level. Murray finished with a career high 744 yards last year, but only had three touchdowns and a look at those yardage numbers are somewhat misleading.

Murray had two 100+ yard games for FSU football last season – 131 yards against Wake Forest and 114 against Louisville along with all three scores coming in those games – but had just one game over 60 yards during the final five games of the season, essentially relinquishing his role as the number one target in the receiving game the second half of the year.

The second half of his sophomore season, Murray averaged 118 yards and a score in games against Clemson, N.C. State and Michigan to make a name for himself. As a junior, he had 604 yards on the season – but nearly half of that was over a three game span against Duke, Louisville and Boston College.

Now, Murray will get a chance to get past what some may have called underachieving during his time in Tallahassee and make it to the next level.