By now Connor Halliday and Vince Mayle are already in Indianapolis registering for the NFL Scouting Combine and Xavier Cooper is en route, since west coast prospects are allowed to travel a day early.

The Combine will be important for all three former Washington State players and for different reasons, since all three have pretty different situations and expectations. For Mayle, expected to be the first Cougar drafted this spring, the week will be about confirming to NFL scouts what they already suspect: that he's got speed to go with his size.

The 40-yard-dash, cone drill and shuttle drills will be important for the receiver, who just needs to confirm that he has the requisite physical tools to translate his superlative numbers in college to the NFL.

It will also be important for Mayle to not drop many balls during the receiver drills since that’s an area in which he struggled late in his college career.

I spoke with Cooper a bit yesterday and he says he's excited to show off his power and explosiveness at the combine and if he, currently expected to be picked in the middle or later rounds, can put up better than expected numbers at the Combine he's got a chance to make himself some money. He's been training with EXOS and says that going up against other pro-ready players – like Donovan Smith out of Penn State – has reaffirmed his belief that he has what it takes to play at the next level, as well as his decision to declare for the draft after his junior season.

Cooper says that he will receive a list of what teams he's going to interview with once he gets to the combine, although he believes he'll be meeting with Denver and Kansas City.

For Halliday, who is still recovering from his season-ending injury, the combine will be about the interviews where he can hopefully impress teams with his knowledge of the game, ability to grasp their offensive concepts quickly, and handle all the other weird stuff that happens in these interviews.

Seriously, they get asked some pretty weird questions.

On to the links:

-- The Cougars added an offensive quality control assistant to the football staff.

-- On Monday we took a look back at WSU's loss to Arizona.

-- Jeff Nusser has an interesting examination of WSU's transition offense.

-- Cooper is doing a draft diary with FOX Sports leading up to the NFL Draft. Here is part one.

-- Don't miss this profile of Josh Hawkinson, written by Bud Withers.

-- Jerry Brewer asks why Washington didn’t win more games with so many players coveted by the NFL.

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