Asher Heads to Minnesota

Comments from Asher Allen from his conference call after being selected in the third round by the Minnesota Vikings...

Q: Were you pleased when the Vikings made that call to you?
A: Yeah, I was really excited. I think anytime you get drafted and go through a stage like this in your life, it’s one of the most heart-pounding things, but it’s also one of the most-enjoyable things. You dream of this day. I wish it could have came earlier, but I’m happy that it came.

Q: Did your hand injury make it a tough decision to come out this year or not?
A: Well, I played with (the injury). That’s the thing about it. Toughness has never been a problem. I broke it and when that happened I had the chance of either sitting out or playing with it. But I love football way too much not to play it. I played with it and then tore it. The last game of the year I played without my cast and it felt really good. And I know my body and also being able to work out and things like that; I had full confidence in my hand. It’s been 100 percent since the last game.

Q: Do you think the injury effected your draft status with some teams, that they were concerned? Do you think it may have hurt your stock a little bit?
A: I really don’t know. I think I had a good Combine showing. I had a great pro day, running a 4.33 (40-yard dash) at my pro day and obviously doing really good at my position drills over and over again and having good character and good grades and things like that. I thought those things were going to be able to take me up a little bit higher. But you don’t know what happens in those rooms and how they come up with those decisions. I’m kind of perplexed myself about going this low. But that’s just how it is. All we can do is just move forward from here and win games up here in Minneapolis.

Q: Do you see yourself fitting in here in the Vikings defense?
A: Obviously, I’m a big fan of Antoine Winfield. I’ve always been a big fan of him and everything that he does. A guy like him, who is kind of similar to the way I play, it’s just great to be on a team with him. Hopefully I have a chance to learn. That’s pretty much, as far as the secondary as of right now that I know. But I’m sure in the next couple weeks I’ll (become) well-informed.

Q: What do you think you have to work on most?
A: The playbook. The Minnesota Vikings playbook and making sure I understand this. At Georgia, we had a very, very complex defense as far as understanding plays and reacting to different plays. I love film. I love watching film. I’m a big student of the game and just really understanding film. The faster I understand the film, the faster I can get on the field. I truly believe that will be the only thing holding me back.

Q: What do you think is your biggest strength?
A: Confidence. I think, playing cornerback, you have to have confidence being out there on those numbers by yourself. Sometimes on the backside of three-ball ones that I’ve spent my last three years at Georgia doing and just playing in the SEC, you gain experience. I played against NFL receivers that are in the NFL right now and I played against college receivers that are going to be in the NFL. Percy Harvin, he’s there right now and he’s a guy I went against for three years. It’s kind of funny that you’re kind of rival teams and you go to the same NFL team. But just that kind of experience playing in the SEC and (Harvin) also, you just gain new tools that you’re able to play in the NFL with.

Q: Did Percy make any plays on you?
A: Nah. Nah, we can go to the films. Every time he played Georgia, he made sure that he made his fair share of plays, as he did his whole year. He’s a great player and I’m happy to be a teammate with him and Phil Loadholt.

Q: You had a really good showing in the bench press at the Combine. Is physicality part of your game?
A: Oh yeah. Like Antoine Winfield, who is a strong corner. I put (225 lbs.) up 22 times. I have the bench press record as well as the power clean record at Georgia for cornerbacks. Physicality is big thing for me because I enjoy pressing. I enjoy getting into a receiver’s mouth, so to say, I think that kind of game. Knowing that you have speed and knowing that you have quickness, it just adds another weapon to you. I like playing in the run game a lot. That’s what we did at Georgia. We allowed our cornerbacks to make a lot of decisions and hopefully I can be able to do that at Minnesota.

Q: What did you think of that contract that your former teammate (Detroit Lions QB Matthew Stafford) got?
A: Oh wow. I hope he can throw a little bit down here to us. He deserves it. He’s been a hard worker. We came to Georgia at the same time and left Georgia at the same time. He’s been a hard worker since he’s been there, as well as Knowshon (Moreno) and Mohammed Massaquoi and Corey Irvin. Those guys, ever since they’ve been there, they’ve been extremely hard workers. Just knowing that those guys are getting their recognition, as well as myself, it’s just been a great weekend, really.

Q: In which game did you break your hand and how did it happen?
A: In the LSU game last year, I broke my hand on the second drive of the whole game. He ran a flip-toss and as a cornerback I read it. I came up and making the tackle, my hand hit his helmet, actually. I was coming at a high speed and he was coming at a high speed. I didn’t know what happened at first. I thought I sprained it and so I just wrapped it up and we just taped it and I ran back out there and played football. From I believe the LSU game all the way up to the Michigan State game, which is pretty much the second half of the football season I was playing with a cast on my hand. Having that kind of thing, probably took away from my interceptions and things like that. I think what I brought my junior year to Georgia was just shutting a side down. That’s kind of the attitude I have. I feel like I can do that. Hopefully I can do that in Minneapolis.

Q: Did playing against a quarterback like Stafford in practice, did that elevate your game, playing against someone who is better than you would face on game day?
A: Picture this for a second, this was my practice; it was Stafford throwing to Mohammed Massoqoui, who is with the Browns now and Knowshon Moreno. That was practice. That was for three years. I feel like going against those guys and how competitive we all are, there were plenty of fights out there between the guys. Just how competitive we are; by the time you got there you were ready for the game. You were looking around like, “Man, this is not the same. This is pretty easy.” I think that’s just one of the reasons why I went to Georgia. I wanted to go somewhere that was very highly-competitive, where I knew a lot of talent was going to be, because I get to prove myself. That’s the kind of person I am. Obviously, I like to do what’s best for the team, but I also I love competition. I love to prove myself.

Q: Did you come close to coming back to school?
A: After the last game I was thinking about it. This decision came up and me and my family talked about it. We just wanted to know what was the best decision for us and for myself. We talked with Coach Richt and Coach Martinez. Coach Martinez, who was my position coach, talked and after talking they obviously wanted me to stay. I’m related to Michael Irvin. Michael Irvin is a cousin of mine and he helped me out a whole lot throughout this, and Darrell Green also did. I formed a relationship with him through this whole process. We talked a whole lot. As a whole group, collectively, we made a decision to come out. We thought it would be best. Going back, I love the University of Georgia. I love everything about it, what it stands for, what the G stands for, the fans there. It was extremely hard to leave but sometimes you got to do what you’ve got to do. But that was the backbone of that decision.

Q: How did you form the relationship with Darrell Green?
A: Darrell Green actually came down for the Capital One Bowl game. He came down there and was actually outside talking to a few guys and I followed him, obviously, as a big football fan. I went up there and said, “Hey” to him and things like that and just kept in touch. He never hesitated to contact me to see how I was doing and likewise I did the same. We’re both cornerbacks and he still thinks he can probably beat me in the 40. We haven’t raced yet. I think the comparisons of both of us probably attracted us to each other. I’ll probably reach him today. He’s a great guy I met at the Capital One Bowl and kept in contact with.

Q: With the defense that Vikings run, do you feel that fits you as a player?
A: Perfectly. That kind of offense we ran at Georgia, we kind of held kind of our base thing. The kind of player I am kind of fits also. I can press, press zone. There are a lot of weapons I believe I bring to the game. That’s just one of the things I do bring. I think that defense, when run correctly, is very, very tough to beat. Hopefully I can just be a part of that wherever (I’m at).

Q: If you played in the nickel would you be more comfortable playing inside or outside?
A: I believe I can play anywhere. Playing the nickel back is something I did when I first got to Georgia. Whenever we had problems toward the field or with a certain receiver I would go to nickel. I’m very familiar with playing nickel. I’m very familiar with playing the hook zone, playing the run through, as far as playing cover two; also playing the curl flat when it comes to cover three, the quarter flat when it comes to cover four. Things like that. We do that at Georgia. Those are things that Coach Martinez really instilled in us and made sure we understood. As a player myself I’m going to make sure I understand it whether it be nickel back or one of the two corners. I’m going to make sure I fully understand it. As far as playing nickel back, it doesn’t matter where. I’ll make sure I’ll understand and I’ll make sure I come in there kind of with a prior knowledge of this defense. I think that I’ll be a quick learner, hopefully.

A Pick to Click

Last year, Asher Allen opined that someone must have spiked the team's Powerade supply. He suggested Super Glue for the players' gloves. He slammed his fist against the turf every time he missed yet another shot at an interception.

While defensive end Demarcus Dobbs picked off two passes during the season and proudly proclaimed he had the best hands on the team, Georgia's defensive backs were left shaking their heads.

The Bulldogs intercepted only 11 passes in 2008, and just five came in the secondary -- all by safety Reshad Jones. For the rest of Georgia's DBs, it was a frustrating season filled with missed opportunities -- a problem they hope to rectify before taking the field in 2009.

"We know we didn't get the job done last year," senior cornerback Prince Miller said. "But I think we started off the spring at a good pace. We're getting batted balls, catching interceptions."

Well, not necessarily.

While the coaching staff has been generally pleased with the productivity of Georgia's secondary this spring -- from Miller's consistency to Bryan Evans' leadership to Brandon Boykin's emergence -- those missed opportunities have still been a problem.

In Georgia's first scrimmage of the season, the defense picked off two early passes, but ended up handing the ball back to the offense both times after fumbling the football.

A few days later, the DBs got their hands on four passes, but didn't come down with an interception on any of them.

It has become a significant source of consternation for Mark Richt and his staff.

"Defense has got to take as much of a serious attitude toward ball security and turnovers as the offense does," Richt said. "I've tried to make a bit point that how are we going to win – if four balls hit our hands in a game and we catch them, we're going to win."

Capitalizing on the offense's mistakes will be crucial this season for a secondary that lost its leader in Allen, who departed for the NFL a year early, and its most experienced safety in CJ Byrd, who graduated after handling the starting duties for the past two seasons.

But for all Allen and Byrd brought to the defense a year ago, neither managed a single interception, and Evans said that can't be the case this season. When a defender has a chance at a turnover, they have to make the play. If they don't, it affects the whole team.

And that's where this spring's newest bit of motivation comes in to play.

In years past, if a defensive back dropped a pick, he did 10 push-ups. This year, everyone does them.

"We're trying to cut dropping picks out completely, so now as a team, as many picks as we drop, that's the pushups we have to do after practice," Evans said. "To know that we're together, one pick affects the whole team. If you drop a pick, the next play they can score a touchdown. So that's how we look at it."

It's a plan Richt has gotten behind. The first step toward fixing the problem, he said, is changing the mind-set.

Richt said that too often the defensive players have been satisfied with simply disrupting a pass or knocking the ball out of a receiver's hands because they haven't been trained to go after a pass the same way an offensive player would.

"A lot of those defensive kids, they didn't catch when they were kids," Richt said. "They can't be satisfied with just saying, well I'm not supposed to catch it. They're getting all excited about a ball disruption, but no -- catch the ball."

It's a learning process, Boykin admits. Without Allen and Byrd, there isn't much experience in Georgia's secondary. Only Evans, Miller and Jones have taken significant snaps in their careers, and Evans is now playing at a new position. But the message is getting through, Boykin said, and by fall, he hopes Georgia's secondary will be back in the business turning opportunities into turnovers.

"That's what the spring is for," Boykin said. "We had young guys out there who haven't really played in a game, so we're going to make mistakes. But we'll see who can build on it, and that's how we get better as a team."

Pro Day Video: 40-yard Dash

Asher Allen and CJ Byrd run the 40 at Georgia's Pro Day.

(*video by Doug Stutsman)

Official Pro Day Measurables

Player	Ht	Wt	Vert	Broad	225	10	20	40	20 shut	60 shut	L drill
Allen	5-9	195	IND	IND	IND	155	257	4.39	IND	IND	IND
Brown	5-11	179	35	10-4	13	156	259	4.41	DNP	DNP	DNP
Byrd	6-2	202	41	10-4	19	156	256	4.38	4.07	11.69	6.76
Chandler	6-5	270	31	9-2	DNP	178	287	4.92	4.69	DNP	7.47
Ellerbe	6-1	237	IND	IND	DNP	164	268	4.62	4.17	IND	6.93
Goodman	6-2.5	189	35	10-9	DNP	163	259	4.53	4.10	11.71	6.97
Harris	6-2.5	205	39	10-6	12	160	265	4.54	4.25	11.12	6.95
Irvin	6-3	302	25	8-7	24	181	296	4.97	4.63	DNP	7.45
Lomax	6-4	251	35	9-6	DNP	169	288	4.80	4.52	DNP	7.29
Massaquoi	6-1.5	207	IND	10-7	DNP	157	262	4.50	4.12	11.36	6.87
Moreno	5-10.5	210	IND	IND	IND	158	268	4.58	IND	IND	IND
Southerland	6-0	245	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND
Stafford	6-2.5	225	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND	IND
Wynn	6-3	272	29	9-5	21	169	284	4.87	4.50	DNP	4.27

NOTES:
* These measurements are all courtesy of Keith Gray of the UGA S&C staff. Each scout will use their own stuff so not sure what's "official" but these are definitely as close as you'll get.
* Don't ask me what the heck "20," "60," and "L Drill" are. Perhaps if someone knows they can leave it in the comments.
* IND denotes player used combine score rather than Pro Day
* Only better results included for weights and run times
* Brown injured hamstring DNP in second 40 time and shuttle runs
* Chandler DNP in bench press due to a shoulder injury
* Ellerbe DNP in bench due to a right pectoral injury
* Moreno's first 40 was a 4.60

Pro Day Notes: Solid Day For Stafford

After Matthew Stafford passed on passing at the NFL combine last month, the hype grew steadily as myriad scouts and fans waited to see his arm on display at today's Georgia Pro Day. As it turned out, it was a pretty typical performance for the former Bulldogs quarterback.

Stafford missed a few throws, was a touch too long on some and left his receivers waiting an extra half-second on others, but in between he managed to impress observers enough that the reviews still came out glowing.

"That arm is different," Georgia strength and conditioning coach Dave Van Halanger said. "I was talking to a guy who is a vice president of one of the team, and he said, 'Wow, we don't even have that in our league.'"

Another scout told Mark Richt he saw Stafford make throws he had never seen another quarterback at make at that level, and while officials from all 32 NFL teams took in the show, it will be up to the Detroit Lions to decide if Stafford will be at the top of this year's draft class.

The Lions had several team officials there to watch Stafford throw, including general manager Martin Mayhew, who played at Florida State under Van Halanger in his college days.

Mayhew was among the many who were impressed with Stafford's performance, and he'll get another up-close-and-personal view later this month. Stafford will hold his only private workout for an NFL team in front of Lions officials in Athens on March 31.

For now, however, Stafford said he wasn't too concerned about draft day. Of course, that didn't mean the rest of the Georgia staff didn't have their hopes set high.

"We've had guys like Knowshon (Moreno) that are great players and are going to get drafted in the top 10, but I've never been around a No. 1 pick, and I've been around a lot of great players," he said. "It's pretty special."

Special isn't exactly how Stafford described his day. He would have like to have put on a pristine performance that put any criticism of his sometimes erratic arm to bed, but he was nevertheless pleased with what he did accomplish.

"I felt like I was throwing it pretty good," he said. "I didn't complete every ball, which you'd like to do, but that's tough to do when you're throwing 50."

At one point, Stafford overthrew a deep route to Kenneth Harris and swatted his leg in disgust. It was about the only sign of emotion the quarterback showed throughout the process, and even that was short-lived.

"I hit that 1,000 times when I was here," Stafford said. "It's no big deal though. They've seen it 100 times on film."

SECOND TIME'S A CHARM

While Stafford's Pro Day performance did little to change the conventional wisdom of scouts, his fellow underclassman Asher Allen may have worked his way back into the first day of next month's draft.

After Allen ran a disappointing 4.47-second 40-yard dash at the NFL combine in Indianapolis, ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper said the cornerback had little chance to be taken in the first two rounds of the draft. So Allen set out to improve the number, working with Georgia trainers to dissect his run and shave some time off the final mark.

That's exactly what he did Thursday, turning in an impressive 4.33 on his second run and turning a few heads of scouts in the process.

"First thing on my mind was my 40," Allen said. "I wanted to run a 4.35 or under, and I did that. A lot of teams just questioned the speed – something that people who know me have no question about – but I think I did a good job with that."

A LONG DAY

Pro Day brought out more than 40 scouts and NFL officials and dozens of former players, but the production was all brought about through some immense effort by Dave Van Halanger and his strength and conditioning staff.

After it was all over Thursday afternoon, however, Van Halanger said it wasn't the work he put in to setting up the event that had him exhausted. It was watching his former players work so hard to achieve their dreams.

"It's a full day, and it is a great day," Van Halanger said. "When I leave here, I'm mentally exhausted. I'm pulling for those kids when they're on the bench, and then you see their mother and father, and they're so jacked to have their kid there. You know how important it is, and you want them to do great. So every time they do something, you're holding your breath, and when it's all over you can say, whoa, that was a good day."

NO SALES PITCH NEEDED

Mark Richt spent plenty of time Thursday shaking hands and chatting up the NFL scouts on hand for the Pro Day festivities, but he said he didn't make any grand sales pitches to try to convince teams to take his players high in the draft. All he did, he said, was tell the truth.

"The one thing about these guys is, you look around and what can you say bad about them?" Richt said. "They're all high character guys, they're great team guys, they've played well, and all I've got to do is tell the truth and it's a good advertisement for them."

IT'S PRIME TIME

There were plenty of big names on hand for Pro Day from former Bulldogs Tim Jennings and Verron Haynes to Atlanta Falcons' coach Mike Smith and general manager Thomas Dimitroff, but the one celeb who stole the show was former NFL star Deion Sanders.

Sanders was in Athens to watch longtime friend Ramarcus Brown work out, but he also spent some time hobnobbing with Richt and Van Halanger, who both coached at Florida State when Sanders was a star player there in the mid-1980s.

The visit from Sanders brought back a lot of good memories for Van Halanger, who counts the former Falcons cornerback as one of the most impressive players he has coached.

"He was brash, he was high spirited, but he was the best," Van Halanger said. "There wasn't anybody better."

On Sanders' pro day, Van Halanger said he ran a fairly impressive 40 time in track shoes, but wasn't satisfied with how much he had impressed the scouts. He ended up borrowing a pair of sneakers from another player and turned in a 4.21. It was the same kind of competitiveness Van Halanger said he saw in the Georgia players performing for scouts Thursday.

"It was good to see Deion," Van Halanger said. "You never forget the fun you had with those guys. A lot of winning, and a lot of tradition, just like we have here."

AROUND THE HORN

Knowshon Moreno didn't manage to improve on his combine 40 times, turning in official times of 4.58 and 4.64... Ramarcus Brown pulled up lame after his first 40 run after tweaking his hamstring... Defensive end Jeremy Lomax followed Brown's lead and suffered a minor hamstring injury during his workout, too... Demiko Goodman turned in a 4.35 in his 40 and jumped 10 feet, 9 inches in the broad jump, impressing scouts... Linebacker Dannell Ellerbe ran his 40 with a broken toe, according to TotalUGA.com, but still turned in a time of 4.6... Georgia plans to release complete times and measurements Friday morning... I hope to have some video from the day up soon, although it's taking a bit longer than I'd hoped to upload.

NOTE: If you haven't already, check out our minute-by-minute coverage of Pro Day at our Twitter site HERE.