“Between the two games, I cut down my weaknesses,” Morris says, referring to early scouting reports on his skills. “Level of competition, ability to release off a real press, speed—a lot of people thought I was going to go out there and be star-struck.”

Morris spent nearly all of February training in Atlanta until the combine, e-mailing assignments in to his professors. Finally, he headed to Indianapolis late in the month for the scouting circus that is the combine. Many draft experts consider the four-day event a crucial barometer in determining how high in the draft a player gets selected.

“The whole deal about the combine is that it’s stressful, and the whole purpose of it is to be stressful,” Morris says. “The coaches want to see how you handle the pressure.”

The first day featured introductory meetings and an opportunity to let the players get acquainted. The next day was a hypochondriac’s fantasy but an athlete’s nightmare—a full battery of physicals and medical tests. Each team wants their own doctor checking individual players. At last count, Morris says he had 32 X-rays and at least 2 MRI’s.

Mental toughness was the key to the third day, which is advertised as a “rest day” but only the athletes’ bodies get to relax. Professional football coaches—the Spurriers, Grudens, Mariucci’s and Parcells—grilled the young men about their motivations, abilities and personal lives, trying to determine whether or not they could handle the intensity of the NFL. The New York Giants administered their infamous Wunderlich psychological examination—and Morris passed with flying colors, scoring a 29 (a 30 or above is stratospheric).

Morris says that the overall pressure-cooker atmosphere of the combine is somewhat alleviated by the jovial nature of the fellow players involved. Players from all different locales and conferences got to know each other, becoming fast friends and awaiting the day they will be millionaires.

Morris was also reunited in Indianapolis with Harvard teammate Jamil Soriano, an offensive lineman who will also be drafted this weekend.

“It was good to be out there and see somebody familiar,” Morris says. The sight of two Harvard football players—Harvard!—definitely rattled some participants at the combine.

“People were more surprised than anything else,” Soriano says. “It has been since at least the 1950s that there were two or more Harvard players going into the draft.”

On the final day, Morris worked out for all the scouts and coaches, going through the same drills he’d done a thousand times. While he ran a relatively pedestrian 4.65 seconds in the 40-yard dash—which measures pure speed—Morris continued to showcase his body control and soft hands.

“Lots of people wrote that I ran better than expected [in the 40], which was good,” Morris says. “I’m fine with it because [speed] is the biggest knock on me right now. All the coaches I talked to…they like the way I catch the ball. I feel overall I had a strong combine, I didn’t have a great combine.”

BACK TO CAMBRIDGE

After the combine, Morris returned to campus and has gotten back in the classroom.

But he works out with trainers at Harvard and has participated in individual workouts here for NFL teams that want to see more. Recently, representatives from the Minnesota Vikings and Baltimore Ravens have visited, and Morris was invited down to Maryland to work out for the Washington Redskins.

“I know who is interested, but I don’t know who’s showing the most interest,” Morris offers. “I’ve heard about a lot of interest from the Arizona Cardinals, Vikings, Ravens, and got a call from the Dolphins recently.”