INDIANAPOLIS -- LeSean McCoy is feeling sick, and it has nothing to do with his decision to leave Pitt with two years of eligibility remaining.

To be sure, he felt bad enough when he publicly declared in November that he intended to return for his junior season with the Panthers, then changed his mind five weeks later.

But maybe not as bad as he felt yesterday, or since Monday, for that matter.

"Not very good timing," McCoy said.

Indeed, McCoy picked a lousy time to get the flu right when he was coming to the NFL Scouting Combine to audition for 32 teams and validate his position as one of the top five running backs in the draft. It began when he got sick on the plane while flying to Indianapolis, and it has included everything from swollen glands to high fever to an annoying cough that interrupted his speech many times during an interview.

The illness caused McCoy to lose 10 pounds -- he weighed in at 198 at the combine -- and likely will prevent him from taking part in the 225-pound bench-press drill because he feels so weak. But he said he wants to compete in all the other drills when the running backs work out with the quarterbacks and wide receivers tomorrow at Lucas Oil Stadium.

McCoy was asked why not just skip the combine?

"That's the thing, I just don't want to blow everything off," McCoy said, wearing a hooded sweatshirt under a black warmup. "I just don't want to back off. I think it will be a cowardly move."

Then he added: "I'm trying to get my health back. I'm a competitor, man. I see these other guys working and training and, you know, going out and performing. A guy like me gets an itch, and I want to go out and do the same thing."

This was going to be a big week for McCoy, the first step toward convincing others he made the right decision to enter the NFL draft.

What's more, he was something of a poster child for the stock of running backs in the draft. A third-year sophomore, he is one of four underclassmen who left school early and are ranked among the top five backs at the combine. The others are Ohio State's Chris "Beanie" Wells (junior), Georgia's Knowshon Moreno (third-year sophomore) and Connecticut's Donald Brown (junior).

McCoy is not as big as Wells (6-11/2, 235) and doesn't break as many tackles as Moreno. But he might be the most elusive running back in the draft, one of the reasons he is expected to be a first-round selection.

Even if his health adversely affects his performance at the combine, McCoy will get another chance to impress the scouts at a pro day March 17. He said his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, already has alerted NFL teams his client is sick.

"I'm trying hard to get back," McCoy said. "I'm just starting to eat a little bit more and I'm trying to run, for sure, and do my drill work. I'm not sure if I'm going to bench press because I don't feel really strong enough, so I'm going to try to the best of my abilities to perform."

McCoy certainly did that at Pitt, bursting on the scene like no other freshman running back since Tony Dorsett. After a 2007 season in which he rushed for 1,328 yards and 14 touchdowns, he finished 10th in the nation with an average of 114.46 yards per game and scored 21 touchdowns last season.

It seemed as if McCoy would be around for another season with the Panthers when he said in late November that he intended to return for his junior year, saying he really liked college life and wasn't ready to be a professional.

Five weeks later, after a loss in the Sun Bowl, he changed his mind.

"I honestly made a big mistake," McCoy said. "We were coming off a tough loss, I think to Cincinnati, and we had West Virginia coming up, and everybody was talking about me leaving or staying. I'm a team guy first. That close loss had me so frustrated, I wanted to win, I wanted to win even more and put that history back at Pitt.

"A guy asked me in a meeting, 'Do you want to stay?' and I told him, 'Yes, I'm staying, I'm not done here. We're so close, so I'm staying.' I think that was a mistake, being a young kid."

McCoy said the mistake was making a public declaration about his intentions.

"I did mean it, I meant it a lot," he said. "But, when I kind of sat down at the end of the season and thought about it, the pros and cons, weighed everything out, and you kind of see the things prepared for me in the NFL, I had to take it.

"This game, at our position, you're only allowed a certain amount of hits, and that's it. You got to make sure you take enough hits and get out and go to the pros and do something you've always wanted to do since you were a little boy.

"When you're small, you don't say, 'I can't wait to play high school football or I can't wait to play college.' You say pros. That's something I obviously wanted to do.

McCoy said Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt was encouraging throughout the process and ultimately placed the decision on his young running back.

"He said I had a unique situation," McCoy said. "I had a great opportunity in the NFL, or I can stay at Pitt and hopefully compete for the Heisman [Trophy] and maybe a national title. It was on me."

First Published: February 21, 2009, 10:00 a.m.