Todd Sibley feels like he’s taking another step closer to his dream.

“It was really good to come out here, really good to compete, be out here with Thomas [Greaney], some familiar faces and just play football again,” Sibley said.

It was an opportunity for the University at Albany running back to show off his strength, speed, agility and explosiveness in front of NFL Scouts at the Great Danes’ Pro Day.

“Something like this, you have months to prepare for,” he said. “So the preparation is a little bit different, having a little bit more time. So the nerves are a little bit at ease because you have so much time to prepare. But at the same time, you’re a little bit anxious because you’ve been training for months for this one specific day, and it’s all on that day.”

Sibley put himself on the radar of NFL scouts after rushing for 987 yards and 10 touchdowns during his one season at UAlbany. The Pitt transfer then spent months training in Orlando and Columbus hoping to get a shot at the NFL.

“The preparation is very tedious, but it’s very helpful,” Sibley said. “You get to dedicate two to three months to just focusing on your body, focusing on the drills you need to do and just working up every day and training. As a football player, that’s what you love to do.”

All that hard work, leading to 9 feet, 1 inch on the broad jump, 28-inch vertical jump, 21 repetitions on the bench press and 4.56 seconds in the 40-yard dash during the two-hour workout.

“It’s one of the most intense moments because you never really know what your time is,” he said. “In your mind, you think you’re running fast, your body is moving fast. But until you get the time back, you have no idea.”

“The thing that gets lost in these pro days is [NFL scouts] do about 90 percent of their evaluations based on game tape, so they already know these guys,” said Greg Gattuso, UAlbany's head coach. “No one works out here that doesn’t have interest from an NFL scout.” 

Gattuso believes the times on the stopwatches raised Sibley’s stocks during one of the most stressful day of his football career.

“I think that the film is really good for him, and I think today in the scouts' minds, at least he has verified he can run,” Gattuso said. “He ran well, he’s explosive and he’s very strong.”

“Just continue to train, continue to prepare my body, prepare my mind and just hoping that when my phone rings, I get the opportunity to go chase my dreams of playing in the NFL,” Sibley said.