Last Chance Clinic in Kasson will allow football players to verify combine times

Football players, and those with college potential, will have a chance to hone their skills and get their vital statistics verified at a combine on Sunday in Kasson.

ETS Performance out of Rochester and RouteTree are teaming up to put on a football combine for high school players who will enter grades 9-12 this fall. The event is called the Last Chance Combine and will be held at 10 a.m. on Sunday at the Kasson-Mantorville High School football field. Check-in will be at 9:15 a.m.

The cost is $75 and advanced registration is at https://routetree3on3.sportngin.com/register/form/109421236 . Walk-ups are also welcome.

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“Should be a fun event,” said Jake Kirsch, the director of operations and the lead performance coach at the Rochester ETS facility. “(It’s) going to be smaller in scale, I’m assuming, but hoping to build for years to come.”
The event will be broken into two halves. The first part of the combine will have ETS Performance instructors teaching players how to properly test for a combine. The players will then do testing in skills such as the 40-yard dash, the broad jump, vertical jump and pro agility. Their test results will be verified.

“The importance of this nowadays is college coaches want everything to be verified to hand out scholarships,” said Travis Walch, the founder of RouteTree. “Nowadays, in order to hand out scholarships, a lot of these colleges want to make sure these times and these tests are verified.”

Kirsch said that each player's combine numbers will be uploaded for college coaches to see.

“We will run through technical work as well to give them some insight on how to test well," he said.

RouteTree will run the second half of the combine, which will feature football skills, activities and competitions. That will include drills that test agility, highlight speed with the ball, one-on-one competitions, and a three-on-three game format.

Walch said about 25 players are currently registered for the event and he is hoping for up to 50 to attend.

“A lot of this came out of a couple local coaches saying that, ‘Our kids always have to drive up to the Twin Cities to do any of this stuff,’ “ Walch said.

“We have to get it off the ground and show people in the area that it’s there for them,” he added. “Show them the benefit of the combine and getting verified for the high school athletes. And then we hope to have really competitive drilling and competition amongst these kids.”

Walch’s goal for the future is that all the top high school players in the area attend the combine so they can improve their skills as well as their combine numbers.

Rochester’s Marcus Sherels, a former player for the Minnesota Vikings, is the local owner of ETS Performance. He was originally scheduled to attend Sunday’s combine, but now has another commitment.