INDIANAPOLIS — Alabama RB Mark Ingram said Friday at the NFL Scouting Combine that the knee he injured in August has healed and is a non-issue heading into April’s draft.

“It feels great, or else I wouldn’t be out here about to run and work out,” Ingram said, adding that he has trained hard on the knee after gaining 875 yards last season, one year after he won the Heisman Trophy.

“The knee injury, I think, is a question mark in everybody’s head,” he said. “What I want to do out here is erase that question mark.”

Ingram, who’s 5-foot-9, has shed about 10 pounds — he said he weighed in at 215 this week — and believes he’s “more explosive” at a lighter weight.

Because of his measurements, Ingram has drawn comparison to another diminutive back, NFL all-time leading rusher Emmitt Smith. Ingram called the parallel “a tremendous honor,” but he said he shies away from comparing himself to past stars.

“I just try to take characteristics from all those guys and develop my own type of character as a runner, my own mystique as a runner,” he said.

Ingram’s father, WR Mark Ingram Sr., was a first-round draft pick by the Giants in 1987 and won Super Bowl XXV with the team following the 1990 season. The younger Ingram was asked if he hoped to land with the Giants like his dad.

“Wherever I have the opportunity to go and play, that’s where I’d be excited to go,” he said.

– Marc Sessler

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