Former FIU defensive tackle hoping to get drafted by the NFL this week

Bobby Beathard is one of seven pure general managers/personnel guys in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and yet he’s the same man who selected one of the NFL’s all-time draft busts, Ryan Leaf.

Moral of that story: No one gets them all right, and that will likely be true for this year’s NFL Draft, especially because most “pro days” were wiped out after the coronavirus pandemic forced everyone to shelter at home.

At FIU, defensive tackle Teair Tart is one of those players who could have used a pro day to better showcase his skills.

Instead, Tart — who led FIU with 12 tackles for losses last year — performed a “virtual” pro day in which he said he ran a 4.9 in the 40-yard dash with a 31-inch vertical leap, impressive numbers for a man who is 6-3 and 302 pounds.

So, where does Tart expect to get selected when the draft begins Thursday?

“I think I’ll go between the fourth and sixth rounds,” said Tart, hoping to be one of those draft surprises who can make an NFL general manager look smart. “It would be great to hear my name called.

“[If not], I will live with it. I just want an opportunity.”

Tart is one of several ex-FIU players who hopes to get drafted this week, a list that includes quarterback James Morgan, cornerback Stantley Thomas-Oliver and middle linebacker Sage Lewis.

In the lead-up to the draft, Tart worked in Connecticut with trainer Rob Mangino and agent Viral Keshwala.

Among other things, Tart did pilates and yoga to improve his flexibility.

When the pandemic hit, Tart went home to Philadelphia, where he lives with his parents. He borrowed weights from his high school coach and did his best to stay in shape, running gassers at a local football field.

Keshwala, understandably, is excited about his client’s potential.

“His explosiveness is next level,” Keshwala said. “He makes plays in the backfield because of his quick first step.”

THIS AND THAT

▪ New FIU men’s soccer coach Kyle Russell, who won 142 games during last decade as a key assistant at Coastal Carolina, will soon get a chance to run his high-pressure system with the advantage of more Florida athletes as well as better access to players from Central and South America. He plans to take advantage at FIU.

“I believe in controlling the game by having possession but also controlling the game when we don’t have the ball,” said Russell, who helped Coastal win more games in the past decade than every NCAA Division I school except for Akron (155), Maryland (146), Wake Forest (144) and North Carolina (143). “The way to do that is to suffocate the other team. Make them feel like they don’t have time to think or rehearse the patterns they worked on in training. Don’t allow them to connect anything going forward.”

▪ FIU men’s basketball coach Jeremy Ballard signed a pair of guards last week: 6-4 D.J. Mitchell and 6-3 Petar Krivokapic. Mitchell is a junior college transfer who played his high school ball in Washington D.C. Krivokapic is coming in as a freshman, originally from Montenegro.

This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 3:40 PM.