Why former Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton had mixed emotions about the NFL Combine

Kyle Hamilton had to stop and reflect.

There he was, just a kid from Atlanta like so many others, walking onto the field under the bright lights of Lucas Oil Stadium to take part in the NFL Combine. Notre Dame puts players into the pro ranks left and right, but the process of actually going from Point A to Point B is something Hamilton knew he could not take for granted.

“Looking up, I was like, ‘I’ve been watching this since I was five years old, and I’m actually about to be one of the people to participate,'” Hamilton said on the Inside The Garage podcast. “That’s kind of crazy. I had to take a step back and appreciate the moment I was in.”

That week in Indy earlier this month was not all glitz and glamor, though.

“That was one of the most stressful four days of my life,” Hamilton said. “I probably grew a couple gray hairs.”

PROMOTION: Sign up for just $1 for first year at Blue & Gold

Hamilton, who has been lauded as the best safety in the current draft class by many credible draft analysts for some time now, had never felt so seen. It’s hard for someone of his stature coming from a program of such prestige to avoid the spotlight. He’s been under a microscope ever since arriving at Notre Dame as the top-ranked recruit in the class of 2019 and bursting onto the scene with a phenomenal freshman season.

The NFL Combine was just plain different.

“I’m getting on the elevator and in the back of my head I’m like, ‘I don’t know if this cleaning lady has a camera on her and if she’s about to report back to whoever on me,'” Hamilton said. “It was like ‘The Opening’ on steroids.”

The Opening is a camp for high school recruits to showcase their skills among the most elite prospects in the country. Naturally, a week-long camp of sorts where prospects who recently departed their respective college institutions show NFL scouts, front office personnel and coaches what they can do would be a bit more intensive.

But it wasn’t the on-field stuff that brought Hamilton stress. It was everything that happened off the field that was entirely new to him.

Formal interviews, informal interviews. Medical examinations like the common folk would never believe. Hamilton said he might have had 25 different X-Rays taken of various body parts. An X-Ray technician told him one prospect broke his collarbone coming out of the womb, and an NFL team asked for that to be closely looked at. Hamilton also estimated he laid in an MRI machine for a total of three hours.

Fighting Irish football news

• Mel Kiper Jr.: ‘I’m not going to change my grade’ on Notre Dame RB Kyren Williams despite disappointing NFL Combine

• ‘Make History’: How Notre Dame quarterback Drew Pyne is motivated by two wristbands

Hamilton was brought into a room full of 35 to 40 doctors sitting at tables arranged in a U shape. He was instructed to sit on an examination table in the middle of the U while one doctor read off a list of every single injury he’s ever had. The various doctors ask questions about the recovery time of those injuries, how the MRIs look now, etc. It’s another doctor answering them. Not Hamilton.

“It’s like you’re not even in the room,” he said.

Hamilton had to sit and listen as doctors discussed a pink injury he suffered in middle school, an elbow injury he went through in high school and the knee injury that kept him off the field for Notre Dame’s final five games of last season. He said he could imagine other athletes having it much worse. Hamilton did have to go through two extra MRIs after that session, though.

“It’s like a test in itself,” Hamilton said. “They’re going to put you through this and see if you can get right.”

It didn’t help when Hamilton ran a sub-optimal 4.59-second 40-yard dash. Hamilton impressed in the other on-field drills — well enough to publicly say the only thing he’ll be doing at Notre Dame’s pro day this Friday is trying to put a better time down in the 40.

“I was debating whether I wanted to, but on my deathbed hopefully a long time from now I’m going to be sitting there thinking, ‘I waited my whole life to run in the combine and I ‘s—’ the bed at the 40. I’m not going to die peacefully,'” Hamilton said.

If that’s the only thing that kept Hamilton down after such a grind of a week, he fared just fine. And he could put all the chatter about his speed to rest with a strong pro day, too.