Spiller Expected to be First Round Pick Thursday Night

April 21, 2010

CBSSports.com Live Draft Tracker

Clemson, SC – Former Clemson running back C.J. Spiller is expected to be selected in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night. The NFL Draft will be held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and will be televised by ESPN and the NFL Network.

The draft begins with the St. Louis Rams selection at 7:30 PM. The first round will be held Thursday night, then the second and third rounds will be conducted Friday night starting at 6:00 PM. The final four rounds will be held Saturday morning beginning at 10:00 AM.

Spiller will be in New York for the draft and will be joined by his mother, brother, sister, daughter, pastor and Clemson Head Coach Gaines Adams was in New York for the 2007 NFL draft.

Eighteen of 19 mock drafts by national media (see below) have Spiller going within the top 15 picks on Thursday. Todd McShay of ESPN, Clark Judge of CBS Sportsline and NBC Sports all have Spiller going to Seattle with the sixth selection.

The only media outlet that has Spiller outside the top 15 is Sporting News, who has Spiller going 20th in the first round to Houston. Ironically, Sporting News ranks Spiller as the fifth best prospect in the draft and has him on the cover of its draft preview magazine. They do have him as the first running back taken in the draft.

If Spiller is taken in the first round he will be the third Clemson player taken in the first round in the last five years. Gaines Adams was the #4 pick of the 2007 draft by the Tampa Bay Bucs. Spiller will be the third straight Clemson first round selection to also earn first-team All-America honors and graduate in the year he was drafted.

Spiller will be the first Clemson running back taken in the first round since Terrence Flagler was the #25 selection of the draft by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1987 NFL draft. He will be the first player on offense to go in the first round since wide receiver Rod Gardner was the #15 pick in 2001. Adams was Clemson’s last first-round selection in 2007 when he was taken by the Bucs.

Other Draft Notes

• Clemson has not had two players taken in the first round since 1982, the draft after Clemson won the national championship when Jeff Bryant and Perry Tuttle went in the first round. Ricky Sapp has a chance to be a first round selection according to some services. He is predicted to go 22nd in the first round according to Sporting News.
• 22 of the last 24 Clemson players drafted have gone on to play in at least one NFL game. That includes all four players who were drafted last year, James Davis, Chris Clemons, Michael Hamlin and Dorell Scott.
• Spiller will be the 23rd Clemson player to be chosen in the first round.
• Clemson could have three players taken within the top 100 of the draft, as Ricky Sapps and Jacoby Ford could also go within the first three rounds. The last time Clemson had three top 100 picks was 1993 when Wayne Simmons, James Trapp and Rudy Harris all went in the top 100 selections. The most top 100 selections Clemson has had in one year is five, set in 1991. The most overall selections in one draft for the Clemson program is 10 set in 1983.
• Clemson has had four players selected with the #15 choice of the first round since 1993. Wayne Simmons, Anthony Simmons, Tye Hill were all chosen with the #15 pick of the first round. The #50 selection has also been popular over the years. Michael Dean Perry, Brentson Buckner and Patrick Sapp were all chosen with the number-50 pick.

CJ Spiller Mock Draft Predictions