For the better part of three years, Micah Parsons and Jayson Oweh playfully feuded about who was faster.
Thursday’s pro day at Penn State provided the biggest stage yet for the former Nittany Lions to race. Representatives from 31 out of 32 NFL teams traveled to State College to watch at the team’s Holuba Hall practice facility.
Oweh turned in the faster time. But both players might be feeling like winners in another month when the draft rolls around.
The numbers spoke for themselves. Oweh ran a ludicrous 4.36 as a 6-foot-5, 257-pound edge rusher. Parsons, a 6-foot-3, 246-pound linebacker, was not far behind with a 4.39. Both times would be excellent for wide receivers, let alone front-seven defensive players.
They’re the type of results that could make both men a lot of money in the draft. Parsons is projected as a first-rounder and the still-raw Oweh has a wide range of evaluations that could land him in the first two rounds.
If they end up being the first two Lions off the board in the draft, it will be in large part because the former classmates — both signed in Penn State’s banner 2018 class — constantly pushed each other.
“The day we both walked in and the moment I saw he was a freak, I knew I could test him. I knew what I could bring out of him,” Parsons said of Oweh on a video call with reporters after the drills. “I always try to keep up with Jay. He PR’d on a lot of things today and I felt that I did really well on things I thought I was going to do well on.
“I think in a lot of categories it was pretty close. I think he had the edge on the day, but overall, I think we competed our butts off today and showed scouts why we’re the most competitive duo in the country.”
Oweh indeed had the edge across the board in drills — the bench press (21 reps to 19), vertical jump (39.5 inches to 34.0), broad jump (11-foot-2 to 10-6) and pro shuttle (4.21 seconds to 4.4).
“It feels good to just let people know who I am, to show people who I really am,” Oweh said. “I could have done better at a few things, but it feels nice to get the recognition.”
And it came with every NFL team except the Los Angeles Rams in the building watching. That included a pair of head coaches within driving distance — the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin and the New York Giants’ Joe Judge.
Tomlin even gave Penn State some marketing material when he told a Big Ten Network reporter, “How can you not be impressed with (Parsons’ and Oweh’s 40 times)? … The numbers are expected, but this is a freak show out here.”
Penn State, though, never got to pair both “freaks” as starters together. Oweh, who made the switch from basketball to football in high school, needed time to learn the game and was behind other productive pass-rushers on the depth chart like 2020 second-round pick Yetur Gross-Matos.
So Oweh didn’t become a regular in the lineup until this past fall, a season that Parsons opted out of to focus on the draft.
Oweh did not record a sack in seven games in 2020 before missing the last two with an injury. But he narrowly missed several, and he was disruptive enough that Big Ten coaches named him a first-team selection at defensive end on the all-conference team.
“It was weird, because maybe the production wasn’t there. But in terms of just skills, I was way better,” Oweh said of his 2020 season. “It just helped me to understand what I had to really hone in on.”
Oweh’s lack of production will make him a question mark on some teams’ boards. For Parsons, he has heard reports that he could slide into the mid- to late-first round because of character issues.
Parsons has been accused of hazing in a civil lawsuit by former Penn State safety Isaiah Humphries, though Parsons was not named a defendant in that suit.
He did not address those allegations directly on Thursday but did acknowledge he has done a lot of growing up since his time as one of the country’s most sought after high school recruits.
“At the end of the day, I believe that I was a kid,” Parsons said. “I was 17, 18. We all made mistakes when we were 17, 18. I’m not going to let it control or dictate the person I am now. I’m not going to let something that was three, four years ago dictate who I’ve become and the father I want to be.
“Anybody who’s willing to accept my wrongs when I was wrong and accept my rights when I’m right, I’m ready to go ahead and give it my all. But if it’s going to come down to something that I did in high school or something I wish I could change, I can only control what I can control and what I do moving forward.”
Six other former Lions were featured at pro day, though tight end Pat Freiermuth did not go through on-field drills as he continues to recover from shoulder surgery in the fall.
“I’m one or two weeks from being able to be full-go,” Freiermuth said. “I’m excited that the process has gone really smooth. I’m a couple weeks ahead of my original date. So I’ve really attacked my rehab and gotten better on that end.”
Also working sparingly was offensive lineman Michal Menet, who only participated in the bench press and was not available for interviews afterward.
“I definitely feel for him,” said another pro day participant, fellow lineman Will Fries. “It’s something that we’ve been training for for months. It was the time to put it all out there. It’s unfortunate, but he’ll get his opportunity to show what he can do.”
A third lineman Steven Gonzalez, who graduated in 2019, was back to work out and put up 32 reps on the bench.
Defensive end Shaka Toney turned in a strong showing highlighted by a 39-inch vertical despite, he said, battling COVID-19 earlier this year. Safety Lamont Wade ran a 4.45 time in the 40.