PATH TO THE DRAFT

April 26, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

Vinopal, Drummond, Heard hoping for a call

YOUNGSTOWN

Earlier this year, when Ray Vino- pal was training at Bommarito Performance Systems in Miami, he was required to be at the training site by 6:30 every morning, which is about 90 minutes later than some of his high school workouts and about five hours before sportswriters eat breakfast.

“I usually got there about 5:40,” said Vinopal, a Cardinal Mooney High graduate who just finished his college football career at Pitt. “I wanted to get a little extra time in the hyperbaric chamber.”

Hyperbaric chambers are big, expensive, oxygenated tubes that are supposed to aid in recovery. Michael Jackson used one. So did Tim Tebow. But while the chambers have their share of skeptics, Vinopal isn’t one of them.

“It works,” he said. “Oh yeah, definitely.”

Since heading back to Youngstown to train, Vinopal has been sleeping in a little later. He doesn’t get to Mooney’s weight room until 6 a.m., where he puts in a two-hour workout before heading home to get ready for work. Of all the questions NFL teams try to answer this time of year — about size, athleticism, instincts, football smarts — the hardest is this: Does this player love the game?

Or, to put it another way, will he keep working after he gets paid?

That’s one question Vinopal — a workout warrior in the same vein as former Mooney standout John Simon — won’t have to answer.

“Hope not,” he said.

The seven-round NFL draft begins Thursday and ends Saturday. Vinopal doesn’t know if he’ll get picked — “I’m on that fringe,” he said — but he knows this: He’s done everything he can to get ready.

“According to my agent, there’s a really good possibility I’ll get drafted but if not, I’ll be a priority free agent,” he said. “It just depends on how the picks fall.

“I’m just excited for either opportunity, to be honest.”

Different paths to NFL

The Mahoning Valley has had at least one player selected in nine of the last 10 NFL Drafts, including the last four. That streak almost certainly will continue this weekend with Hubbard High graduate Kurtis Drummond, who was named the Big Ten defensive back of the year last fall with Michigan State and who projects as a mid-round pick. Vinopal and his former teammate, Kentucky running back Braylon Heard, are also in the mix.

But as Drummond himself said last week, “It’s not about how you get into the league. It’s about how you stay in the league.”

Take 2013, for instance. About 20 percent of the players in the NFL that year were undrafted, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Of the 622 undrafted rookies signed in 2013, 37 percent were either on the Week One practice squad (131) or the 53-man roster (98), according to Pro Football Talk.

Falcons safety Sean Baker (Canfield), Ravens running back Fitzgerald Toussaint (Liberty) and Browns DT Ishmaa’ily Kitchen (Mooney) all played in at least one NFL game last fall after making their teams as undrafted free agents. Mooney High graduate Michael Zordich made the Saints’ practice squad last fall after going undrafted in 2013.

Getting an invitation to the NFL Scouting Combine, held annually in February in Indianapolis, helps a player’s chances of getting picked. But it’s no guarantee. In 2014, 111 of the 335 players at the Combine went undrafted, while 32 Combine snubs got picked.

Vinopal wants to join them.

From college to the pros

After starting every game the last two seasons at Pitt, Vinopal thought he would get a Combine invitation — “I figured I was a shoe-in,” he said — but after missing the cut, he put all his energy into Pitt’s pro day, where he was faster (between 4.49 and 4.56 in the 40-yard dash), higher (35 inches in the vertical) and stronger (bench-pressing 225 pounds 26 times) than his six senior teammates.

“I was kind of bitter [about not getting a combine invitation] but that’s kind of the story of my entire career, pretty much,” Vinopal said. “My agent kept me positive, emphasizing that it wasn’t really a big deal. Pitt’s a big school and we had 28 teams at our pro day, so I just prepared for pro day like the Combine.

“I was pretty confident I was going to do what I did.”

Drummond (not surprisingly) and Heard (somewhat surprisingly) did get Combine invitations. Heard, who played two years at Nebraska before transferring to Kentucky, decided to forgo his final year of eligibility after rushing for just 368 yards and four TDs last fall.

“I just felt like, as a running back, you only get so many years,” said Heard, who is finishing up his final class for his community and leadership development degree. “I’m already 24 years old. I’ll have my degree and everything, so I just felt like it was time.”

Heard (5-10, 198) was a Mr. Football finalist at Cardinal Mooney, teaming with Vinopal to lead the Cardinals to a 15-0 record and the Division IV state title in 2009. But he never quite broke through in college, rushing for 462 yards and four TDs at Nebraska in 2011 and 2012 before transferring to Kentucky. After sitting out the 2013 season, Heard started 10 games last fall but finished second on the team in rushing.

He ran a 4.63 40-yard dash at the Combine — he was able to lower that time at Kentucky’s pro day — and put up 19 reps on the bench press and had a 30.5-inch vertical jump. While Heard felt he did well in workouts, he was just as interested in the private interviews.

“I was able to meet with a bunch of different coaches and GMs and show them the kind of character I have,” he said. “I feel that’s a big part of who I am. I’m a good character guy in the locker room, I’m very hard-working, I give 100 percent at whatever I’m asked to do and I’m a student of the game.”

Drummond (6-1, 200), who started 34 straight games at free safety for the Spartans, got three chances to impress scouts after MSU’s Cotton Bowl win, playing in January’s Senior Bowl before participating in the Combine and MSU’s pro day.

Drummond, who ran a 4.65 4-yard dash and jumped 39.5 inches at the Combine, said he’s anxious to start the next part of his football career.

“This is one of the harder parts of the whole process,” said Drummond, who has been working out in East Lansing, Mich. “There’s so much time and you’re really left to just wonder. I’m ready to get the next chapter started.”

Beating the odds

Drummond, Heard and Vinopal were part of the famed 2010 recruiting class, which featured 25 Division I (FBS/FCS) recruits from the Mahoning Valley.

While there were some high-profile disappointments — Ursuline’s Jamel Turner, for instance, was wounded in a 2010 shooting and never made it to Ohio State — there were several success stories, including Poland safety Luke Wollet, who had a standout career at Kent State before earning a tryout with the Saints last summer.

Cardinal Mooney had six recruits that season and only two (Youngstown State safety Donald D’Alesio and Buffalo quarterback Alex Zordich) finished their careers with their original team. Vinopal originally signed with Michigan and was a freshman starter, only to transfer to Pitt when Rich Rodriguez got fired. Heard originally committed to West Virginia, then signed with Nebraska, transferring when Ameer Abdullah seized the starting job and the coaches started asking Heard to make a position change. D’Alesio was a four-year starter at YSU, but offensive linemen Eric Franklin and Zach Larson played just one year with the Penguins. And Zordich had an up-and-down career at Buffalo.

Drummond, meanwhile, had a terrific career at MSU, but his Hubbard teammate, Andre Givens, never made it to Pitt after signing with the Panthers as a senior. He spent the 2010 season with Milford Academy, a post-secondary school in New Berlin, N.Y., then landed at Bowling Green, where he’s spent the last three years as a reserve running back.

These stories aren’t unique — if 50 percent of a team’s recruiting class sees the field, it’s considered a success — but they prove how difficult it is to get to the NFL.

According to the NCAA, only about 6.5 percent of the 1.1 million high school students who play football each year will play in college — and that number shrinks considerably if you only count FBS schools. Only 1.6 percent of college football players will get drafted by an NFL team.

When Drummond was in sixth grade in 2003, he moved from Brookfield to Hubbard. Three years later, a Hubbard High graduate named Anthony Smith got picked in the third round by the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was the first Eagle to get drafted since 1978, when the Browns picked Al Pitts out of Michigan State.

“It was definitely cool to see that,” Drummond said of Smith’s selection. “To see a player make it to the NFL from such a small area, that was great.”

Cardinal Mooney’s NFL history is a little richer, but the Cardinals went more than 20 years without a draft pick until the Ravens selected Simon (Ohio State) in the fourth round in 2013.

Whether they get drafted or not, Vinopal and Heard said it would be special to enter the NFL together.

“It’d be really, really cool,” Heard said.

Added Vinopal, “Braylon is one of my best friends. I obviously don’t have to talk about how good of a player he is, but he’s an even better person. I know he’s gonna get a shot and do great things.

“If we could do it [play in the NFL], that would be something special.”