Northwestern RB Justin Jackson runs a 4.52 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine

**UPDATE**- The official 40 time has been changed from 4.50 to 4.52 since publication.

Justin Jackson ran a 4.52 40-yard dash on the first day of the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. That’s a spectacular time for Northwestern’s star running back and should raise his draft stock heading into the NFL Draft.

Jackson’s second time was an unofficial 4.53, which shows that the 4.50 was no fluke. He ranked behind N.C. State’s Nyheim Hines (4.39) and Penn State’s Saquon Barkley (4.41), but he was ahead of big-name backs like Sonny Michel, Bo Scarbrough, Nick Chubb, Akrum Wadley, and Royce Freeman. It’s truly a fantastic 40-yard time for Jackson.

Jackson is Northwestern’s all-time leading rusher and a school legend, but NFL prognosticators have been down on his NFL potential due to his lack of size and strength. As Perdichizzi notes, Jackson has been marked down as a Day 3 prospect, but good Combine results like this could vault him into Day 2. In slightly less good news, Jackson only had 13 bench press reps in the strength section, which is well behind some of the stronger running backs (Saquon Barkley led all backs with 29). That’s going to be an issue going forward.

In better news, the Northwestern star put up a whopping 38.5 inch vertical, putting him in 4th place in that category and just 2.5 inches behind the leader (guess who). He also put down a broad jump of 10’2”, which is pretty middle-of-the-pack. Jackson’s official measurements, which came in earlier this week, were 6’0”, 193 lbs, with a 30 5/8 inch arm and a 9 ¹⁄₄ inch hand.

UPDATE: Jackson finished the combine strong, with a 6.81 second three-cone drill, a 4.07 second 20 yard shuttle, and an 11.06 second 60 yard shuttle. Currently he sits in second, first and first respectively in those three drills.

Check out this spreadsheet for more Combine info.