Former KU LB Ben Heeney shines at NFL Combine

By Matt Tait     Feb 22, 2015

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Kansas University linebacker Ben Heeney jumps during a drill at the NFL football scouting combine Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015, in Indianapolis.

During the several weeks he spent in Florida training for the NFL scouting combine, former Kansas University linebacker Ben Heeney’s main goal was to prepare himself to run a 40-yard dash time in the 4.6-second range.

Sunday, on the Lucas Oil Stadium turf in Indianapolis, Heeney did one better by setting a new top mark for linebackers in the 60-yard shuttle drill with a time of 11.06 seconds. That time was the fastest by a linebacker at the combine in at least the last decade and highlighted a stellar day for the Hutchinson native.

“Ben Heeney’s Spiderweb is going to be pretty awesome,” Tweeted Mike Loyko, a New England Patriots and NFL Draft Analyst and Head Scout and Editor at NEPatriotsDraft, a USA Today Digital Media partner. “Perhaps the best agility performance in at least 10 years.”

Heeney also showed well in the 40, cracking the 4.6 mark with an official 40 time of 4.59 seconds, the fourth fastest among all linebackers in Indianapolis.

Heeney’s time was just seven-one-hundredths slower than big-time names like Oregon quarterback and 2014 Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota (4.52), Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon (4.52) and even faster than Alabama running back T.J. Yeldon (4.61) and UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley (4.63), all players expected to go much higher in the upcoming draft than Heeney.

Heeney’s fast sprint accounted for just part of what turned out to be a fantastic all-around day for the former KU captain who was among the Big 12’s top defensive players during the past three seasons.

Heeney also earned top-performer billing among all linebackers in attendance by finishing first in the three-cone drill (6.68 seconds) and 20-yard shuttle drill (4.0).

Add those performances to his 10-foot leap in the broad jump (14th place), 19 reps of 225 pounds in the bench press (24th) and 33.5-inch vertical jump (19th) and Heeney likely did nothing but help himself in the eyes of the dozens of NFL scouts and coaches in the building on Sunday afternoon.

Heeney will return to Florida tonight and be back in Kansas on Wednesday. From there, he’ll continue training for KU’s upcoming pro timing day — where he may elect to attempt to improve any of those marks — and prepare for the NFL Draft.

Former KU cornerback JaCorey Shepherd will be on the field in Indy on Monday, going through the same tests and drills that Heeney and the linebackers went through on Sunday. Like Heeney, Shepherd has spent a lot of the past several weeks hoping to fine-tune his 40 time, but there’s a chance that a tweaked hamstring that kept him out of the Senior Bowl might keep him from running at the combine.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.