Arians stresses dominance for players from small colleges

Arizona head coach Bruce Arians said earlier this week small college prospects need to “dominate” at their level to catch his attention.

“They can’t just be a good player at that level,” Arians said. “They have to dominate the competition. And they have to have a swagger about them to be able to come into a locker room of SEC guys and other guys with a chip on their shoulder.”

On Friday, South Carolina State’s Javon Hargrave said that’s exactly what he did, and he has the numbers to back it up. The 6-foot-1, 309-pound defensive tackle had 29 1/2 sacks in the last two seasons in Orangeburg, which was enough to get him an invitation to the NFL Combine.

“I’m a dominant football player. I played at a lower level, but I can compete at any level,” he said. “I want to show everybody that it doesn’t really matter where you come from. Football is football.”

The Salisbury, N.C., native also has the chip on his shoulder Arians mentioned, thanks to not being able to get into an FBS school because of an NCAA Clearinghouse issue.

“Of course, I was hurt. Everybody wants to go DI coming out of high school,” he said. “I had some things to prove, and I’m still proving it to this day.”

Hargrave is expected to be a mid- to late-round draft pick.

Reader’s Roommate

D.J. Reader was hoping to forget about Clemson’s 45-40 loss to Alabama in college football’s national championship game.

Instead, when he moved to his NFL Combine training facility, he found out his roommate for more than a month would be Crimson Tide linebacker Reggie Ragland, and Ragland reminded Reader of the game “all the time,” Reader said.

“It’s been tough, but that’s my boy,” Reader said of Ragland. “That’s the nature of a competitor. But we laugh, we joke about it, we go back and forth.”

Supporting Harbaugh

Former Michigan defensive tackle Willie Henry defended Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh, saying he’d be happy to spend his spring break in Florida for spring practice as his former teammates are doing this week.

“He’s different,” Henry said. “He’s a guy who’s going to push everything he wants to do in the right way.”