Don't be surprised if former Reading High School football star RB DeShawn Wynn ends up with the Cincinnati Bengals on draft day.

The Florida Gator running back has eased his way up the charts ever since his performance in the National Championship game against Ohio State. Wynn continued to improve on his stock with a stellar performance at the Scouting Combine last month.

Several teams took notice of the workout including the hometown Bengals. Wynn had a formal meeting with the Bengals while at the combine followed by an informal chat with the club during the school's pro day two weeks ago. If that's not enough, the Bengals are scheduled to have Wynn in for a visit April 17th.

Versatile back

At 5-foot-11, 232-pounds, Wynn is considered one of the bigger backs entering the draft, not to mention one of the most physical runners.

He's best described as a Stephen Davis type bruising runner. Wynn rushed for 699 yards on 143 carries averaging 4.9 yards a pop and made six trips to the end zone this past season.

However, Gator fans never really got to see what the former high school All-America running back was truly capable of since he was forced to play in three different offenses in his five-year career at Florida.

Wynn was asked to do a lot of things besides run the ball, which he was definitely capable of doing if given the opportunity. As a high school senior, Wynn got more yards than a lawncare service rushing for 2,283 yards and 30 touchdowns.

Wynn has a good frame for running in between the tackles and can take a lot of hits. He has a good burst and is a big back who can do some of the things as a smaller back. He can be a workhorse and is most effective in the I-formation.

The wrong idea

There were a lot of misconceptions about Wynn coming into the draft process. One was his speed and the other was a couple of little run-ins with the coaching staff while at Florida. Wynn addressed both misconceptions.

Coming into the combine, scouts had some preconceived notion that Wynn was tortoise slow, but he quickly proved them wrong when he ran a 4.45 in the 40-yard dash last month.

As for the run-ins with the coaching staff, Wynn takes full responsibility.

"The biggest misconception out there is that I'm not a hard worker, which probably was the case early in my career at UF and has followed me until now," he said. "I definitely don't think you can say I'm not a hard worker if I can play for Urban Meyer for two years and be the starting tailback.

" I led the team in rushing and put in a lot of work for coach Meyer to prove that I can handle it. That's something I improved on throughout my career. I definitely had some immaturity problems early in my career, but that's part of growing up and it helped me to grow a lot and look at things from a different perspective," Wynn said.

Wynn never had any off-the-field problems and changed his ways when coach Meyer called him out in front of the entire team.

"I wasn't down with the coach call out at first. I thought coach was picking on me. Then I started to do the things he told me to do and started to see a difference in myself on and off the field. Coach definitely influenced me and I had no choice but to do the right things. The change really helped me," he said.

It's true, change is good.

Wynn has flown under the radar up until now and the sudden gain of interest has teams like the Bengals, who are looking to add depth to the backfield, are taking a hard look at the one time high school phenom.