How former Iowa football players performed at Hawkeyes’ 2025 pro day

IOWA CITY — Deontae Craig admitted it was “tough” when the former Iowa defensive end (and multiyear starter) did not receive an invitation to this year’s NFL Combine.

“I just got to control what I can control,” Craig said. “At the end of the day, I knew I was going to have my day eventually.”

That day to impress scouts came for Craig and 13 other former Hawkeyes — seven who went to the combine, long snapper Luke Elkin and another six that did not make the cut — at Iowa’s annual pro day on Monday.

All 32 NFL teams were represented in Iowa City.

Here is a look at how some of the Hawkeyes performed at the Hansen Football Performance Center in front of NFL scouts:

Safety (and Cedar Rapids native) Quinn Schulte participated in every drill on Monday after not getting invited to the NFL Combine. He did not recall his 40-yard dash time during media interviews, but had an impressive 38-inch vertical jump. That would have put him in the upper-third of safeties at the combine.

He reported a 9-foot-9 broad jump and 15 reps on the bench press. That is coincidentally the same broad jump measurement that teammate Sebastian Castro had in Indianapolis.

Tight end Luke Lachey did the 40-yard dash in Iowa City after choosing not to participate in the drill at during his visit to the combine. He had a 4.77, which would have put him in the middle-third of combine participants.

“I’ll take it,” Lachey said. “I was going for somewhere in the sevens.”

Lachey also reported a 4.16-second 20-yard shuttle time. That was a significant improvement from his 4.47-second shuttle time at the combine.

Iowa linebacker and 2024 unanimous All-American Jay Higgins had a 4.14-second 20-yard shuttle on Monday — a significant improvement from his 4.35 seconds at the combine. His improved metric would have led all linebackers if it happened in Indianapolis.

“It was like the last drill we did of the testing,” Higgins said, referring to his inferior combine time. “So I was super tired.”

Higgins also had 20 bench press reps on Monday.

Fellow linebacker Nick Jackson ran a 4.65-second 40-yard dash. That would have been a bit below average at the combine.

“Hopefully a little faster on the hand,” Jackson said.

Jackson had a 1.50-second 10-yard split, 34.5-inch vertical jump, nine-foot-5 broad jump and 16 bench press reps. He reported a particularly impressive 3.99-second 20-yard shuttle run and “high 6.8” in the three-cone drill.

Offensive lineman Tyler Elsbury had an impressive pro day, according to numbers posted by his agents afterward on social media. He had a 5.15-second 40-yard dash, 4.6-second shuttle run, 7.63-second three-cone drill and 30.5-inch vertical.

Defensive end Deontae Craig “did everything” at Iowa’s pro day as he wanted to “showcase that I’m adaptable.” He opted not to share his numbers publicly.

“I don’t want to throw out specifics just because I don’t want to incriminate myself with the scouts in case they listen to this,” Craig said. “But I came in with some goals, and I feel like I met a lot of them.”

The numbers from Iowa’s pro day come with some caveats. The event is not open to media, so reported numbers/measurements are at the discretion of each athlete. Several of the former Hawkeyes did not participate in media interviews afterward.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

Sign up for our curated Iowa Hawkeyes athletics newsletter at thegazette.com/hawks.