The Terps' combine wizard

On the wall across from Dwight Galt’s office in the Terrapin football team’s weight room is a series of charts, one for each position, that list the top three results for players past and present in measurables such as the bench press, the 40-yard dash and the vertical jump.

Vernon Davis, the sixth overall selection of the 2006 NFL Draft after a record breaking 4.38 40-yard dash time and 10-foot-8 inch broad jump at that year’s NFL Scouting Combine, dominates the tight end board. His 465-pound bench press in 2005, for example, far exceeds the next-best number.

Davis is one in a long line of recent Terp draft prospects who have taken what they’ve learned in this room, located in the Gossett Football Team House just behind Byrd Stadium’s east end zone, to the NFL’s premier scouting event. For Davis and a number of others, that’s meant multi-million dollar rookie contracts and the attention that comes after displaying freakish feats of athletic ability.

Galt, the team’s longtime director of strength and conditioning, is the man behind the scenes who has helped build the Terps’ reputation in the agility, speed and weightlifting drills that NFL teams will once again dissect when the 2010 combine starts today in Indianapolis.

“Dwight Galt — he’s the one that really stresses the stuff they do at the combine; the drills, the whole components of it,” said cornerback Nolan Carroll, who along with left tackle Bruce Campbell and defensive tackle Travis Ivey, will represent the Terps at Lucas Oil Field this week. “He really teaches everybody coming into that environment from the time you get there, so it’s kind of second nature by the time you leave.”

Carroll remembers when he was a freshman and Galt, who players refer to as “Deege,” revealed the intricacies of the 40-yard dash — the proper foot placement, the correct start and stance mechanics, the maintenance of max velocity.

It’s Galt’s strength and conditioning program, which puts players through many of the combine’s staple events from the time they begin their college careers, that’s helped produce the notable testing results of former players such as Davis, D’Qwell Jackson and Darrius Heyward-Bey.

All improved their draft stocks with good showings at the combine. Even while most players leave College Park for personal trainers in other cities in the weeks leading up to the event, Carroll said the lessons Galt teach stay with them, and the players recognize his value.

“A lot of the other college programs are doing the same things. A lot of other people are doing pro shuttle drills. Everybody’s doing 40-yard dash,” Galt said. “But I think that kinda the way we approach it is different. When they’re underclassmen I teach them how to do them. ... They know that, yes, they’re working hard to become great players here at Maryland — that’s by far the primary reason they do it. But there’s also a secondary, gleam in their eye look that, ‘Hey, this may actually serve me very well to make some money doing this.’”

Galt has been a strength coach at this university in some capacity since 1984. In 1992, the same year in which he became a football-only strength coach, Galt started to prepare players for the specific rigors of the NFL combine.

By the time players participate in the combine or in the Terps’ pro day after their college careers, Galt said they’ll have done hundreds of pro shuttle drills, hundreds of 60-yard shuttles, bench pressed 225 pounds (the standard weight for the bench press event) at least 10 times, and run the 40-yard dash at least eight times in front of crowds to create a pressurized atmosphere.

Campbell, the 6-foot-7 lineman who decided to leave the Terps in December after his junior season, stands the best chance of carrying on the Terps’ combine legacy. Galt said he’s confident Campbell will “absolutely dominate,” when he goes through workouts on Saturday.

NFL.com draft analyst Gil Brandt agreed, and said that Campbell will “probably be one of the most talked about, dissected guys in this draft,” because he’s expected to perform so well among offensive linemen this week.

The issue — one which Galt didn’t shy away from exploring — is how Campbell’s potentially stellar combine performance in a few February drills will translate in the pros, when it’s time to put on pads and start playing in actual games.

“When you look at the ACC all-stars, Campbell doesnt get first or second team votes, and yet we’re thinking of him as possibly a guy in the top half of the first round of the draft,” Brandt said. “You don’t want to take or throw away two or three years of information for an hour of work that’s done at the combine.”

Campbell played well for spurts last season, but injury problems forced him to miss three games, and there are concerns about his durability.

Brandt, who served as the Dallas Cowboys’ chief talent evaluator from 1960-1988, said he was often wary of prospects who excelled at combine events despite an incomplete body of work in college.

For the time being, perhaps nobody embodies the downside of that equation more than Heyward-Bey, who the Oakland Raiders selected with the No. 7 overall pick in last year’s draft.

Heyward-Bey, who still holds the Terps’ record for best 40-yard dash time with a 4.23 second run in 2006, ran a 4.3 in last year’s combine — a number that caught the attention of the Raiders despite the almost universal consensus among draft analysts that there were better wide receivers available.

Heyward-Bey finished his rookie season with nine receptions, 124 receiving yards and one touchdown.

“Just because you’re a great athlete and you’re strong and fast doesn’t mean you’re a great football player,” Galt said, when asked if combine results are sometimes overvalued. “But [NFL teams] feel if they have a kid who has the right physical makeup, who has good character, that has the size, the strength, the speed to potentially be successful, they’re gonna give him a shot.”

Former Terps’ cornerback Domonique Foxworth, a third round draft pick in 2005 now with the Baltimore Ravens, said while most players would rather do without the combine, it’s a neccessary tool. And to Foxworth, Galt is the source for many Terps’ success there.

Foxworth ran a 4.34 second 40-yard dash during his combine, something he thinks has prolonged his career.

“Not only did it help my draft stock, that number is something that sticks with you,” Foxworth said. “I will forever be known, as long as people are looking for corners, as a 4.3 guy.”

Galt takes pride in that trend, and is careful in his attention to detail when discussing the components of his program. His son, who also goes by Deege, started on the Terps’ defensive line as a senior last season and has already taken an assistant strength coach job at South Carolina.

Still, Galt is always tweaking the routine, always looking for another drill or another way for his players to get a physical edge. And even with the welcomed combine success, that’s where his focus remains.

“I never wanna be just an athletic prep program here,” Galt said. “This is a football development program. I think we do a pretty unique job of putting everything together. I think that the way we put it together works out pretty well for the University of Maryland.”

akraut@umdbk.com