Duke football players return for "one more ride" at Pro Day

13 former Duke players gathered inside the Pascal Field House on Thursday morning to workout in front of representatives for all 32 NFL teams with the hopes of catching a scouts eye and making a roster. Offensive lineman Graham Barton noticed one thing pretty quickly about the process.

"It's all quiet and tense out here," Barton reflected after the Pro Day.

Barton is viewed by many NFL Draft analysts as the best pro prospect among the Blue Devils, capable of playing multiple positions along the offensive line. With lofty expectations on his shoulders and plenty of pressure on the rest of the Duke, he did his best to alleviate the tension.

"You try to loosen the mood and just have fun and compete with your guys, I think that's really what it's all about and that's why everyone loves coming back for Pro Day," Barton said.

Sentiments echoed from the other side of the line of scrimmage by Duke defensive tackle DeWayne Carter. Both Carter and Barton participated at the NFL Combine in February. Carter did most of his major testing in Indianapolis, so he limited his work on the field to a few position drills. That was intentional.

"It's just one more ride with the guys," Carter said. "Be more of a cheerleader per say, and then obviously handle my business on the back end."

The list of players participating in the Pro Day this year for Duke played pivotal roles in a resurgence of football at Wallace Wade Stadium, from 3-9 in the final year under former head coach David Cutcliffe to back-to-back winning seasons under Mike Elko. With Elko's departure to become the head coach at Texas A&M, the Blue Devils hope to continue those winning ways under new head coach Manny Diaz.

"This is my class, we came in June 2019, a million years ago. I'm an old guy now," Carter joked, "with our mindset to be kind of the people that changed the legacy of Duke football."

"We really do have talent here, it's the cream of the crop, it's not just the basketball school trope, we produce and I think that's continued to show these past two falls and I can't wait to see what they do in the fall," Carter said.

We'll wait for later this spring, April 25-27 to be exact, to see what these players do in the NFL Draft.

Here's a list of the unofficial results from the Pro Day, provided by Duke:

Bench Press: 24

Wingspan: 78 3/8