Mark Ingram: Not Resting on His Heisman, Ingram Works Hard to Impress Scouts

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer) Mark Ingram rolled with the Tide, and maybe that taught him that a rolling stone gathers no moss. Not just resting on his reputation and his Heisman Trophy, Mark is working out in a grueling schedule with an instructor at the Sonic Boom Speed Conditioning & Strength Training Academy in Jefferson, Louisiana.

That instructor, Wyatt Harris says that he is very impressed with Ingram's work ethic and ability.

"Mark is special," Harris in an interview with the Daily Comet. "Some of his workouts the last few weeks here have been freakish. He has gotten his weight up from about 212 to 222 pounds. Now he has a real compact build, but he has some strong explosive traits and he can scoot. He is a lot faster than people think he is."

Mark has never been content to do anything less than try and get better. In an interview with me earlier in the year he said, "My time at Alabama has meant the world to me. The friendships and family I've made here will be with me always, but the lessons I've learned here have helped me more than I can say. I've learned from Coach Saban that it's not enough to be good at what you do. The goal is to get better each day, to always find a way to improve something, to never be content."

It's a forgone conclusion that Ingram is on a lot of NFL teams' "wish lists", so why work so hard? After all, he's a first-rounder even with a bad combine.

According to Harris, he wants to impress teams so much that he moves Ingram up to a top 12 pick. After all, in the past six drafts, a running back was a first 12 pick and he feels Ingram can be at least as valuable as any of those previous ones.

Since the end of football season, he's put on a little more weight but not lost a step in his speed. It's not the Cajun cooking that's put that weight on, it's is the muscle earned from the extra workouts.

With the combines starting Feb. 23rd and going on until March 1st, there's little time to go. Ingram will use it all to get just a little better each day.

That's the way he rolls and always will, just like the Tide he'll always love.