Despite injury, U.Va.’s Hall could be first state player off the board
Waiting patiently to be able to run on a football field again is a routine Bryce Hall had already grown accustomed to long before the coronavirus left players wondering when they’d get to compete again.
Yet despite suffering a left ankle injury that kept him out of Virginia’s final eight games last season, Hall showed the goods he possesses at cornerback enough over the course of his U.Va. career to make him possibly the earliest selected player from the state of
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Virginia in this year’s NFL draft, which starts tonight and concludes Saturday.
As for the ankle, all the right signs started to show up in mid-March.
“Once I started running and cutting, I think then it just becomes more about getting used to the feeling and getting used to moving again,” said Hall, adding doctors told him in mid-February he should be back to 100% healthy by the start of NFL training camps — if they start anywhere near their usual July dates. “Then, everything else comes with that.”
Trying to peg where Hall will be picked in the draft is a bit of a crapshoot. Many analysts consider him to be third or fourth-round material, but Pro Football Focus released a mock draft Wednesday that projected him to go in the first round to the San Francisco 49ers with the 31st overall pick.
Though Hall, wide receivers Joe Reed and Hasise Dubois, quarterback Bryce Perkins, linebacker Jordan Mack and defensive tackle Eli Hanback all are draft hopefuls, ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper believes Hall will be the only former Cavaliers player selected. Hall briefly considered forgoing his senior season at U.Va., but announced he would return in December 2018 just after Virginia’s