Moran Norris has heard so many varying opinions of his worth in this weekend’s NFL draft, he has stopped listening.
“I don’t pay any attention to it,” Norris, a powerful fullback who graduated from Kansas University in December, said Thursday from his Houston home. “I’ve heard so many things. I’ve heard late Saturday, early Sunday. You never know until it happens. I hope I go Saturday, but I don’t have the slightest idea. You can never tell.”
The first three rounds of the draft will come to pass Saturday, with Rounds 4-7 slated for Sunday.
Whether Norris goes Saturday, Sunday or not at all remains to be seen, but he plans a small family-and-friends gathering this weekend in Houston to watch the draft on television.
“It’s a good time,” Norris said. “I’m nervous, real nervous. But it’s good. I don’t have any preference where I go. I just want to go. I’ve been waiting for this for so long. Whatever happens, I just hope it’s positive.”
Norris is KU’s best hope for a positive draft experience.
Listed as the top fullback in the nation by the NFL Scouting Combine going into his senior season, Norris was hampered by a severe ankle sprain and didn’t match his junior-year numbers. However, he impressed coaches and scouts at the NFL combine with his 37-repetition performance in the 225-pound bench press, and his on-campus tryouts with team representatives didn’t hurt his stock.
Draft guru Mel Kiper ranks Norris as the second-best fullback in the draft.
A handful of other Jayhawks also stand a chance to get drafted this weekend.
Hard-hitting safety Carl Nesmith and outside linebacker Chaz Murphy also are popping up on some mock draft lists.
“I think you’ll see probably four or five guys not necessarily will they all get drafted but I think within a 48-hour period you’ll have probably five guys that end up headed toward a camp,” KU coach Terry Allen said. “I think Moran is probably the highest potential draft choice. You’ve got Carl out there. You’ve got people expressing a lot of interest in Marc Owen as far as either a late-round draft choice or a free agent. Guys have been taking strong looks at guys like Chaz Murphy and even Dylen Smith or David Winbush. I think probably the highest draft possibilities are obviously Moran and Carl.”
Nesmith expects to get drafted.
“I’ll probably go late in the draft, fifth or sixth or something like that,” Nesmith said from his childhood home in Jacksonville, Fla. “I could have gone a lot higher, but I had a bad combine. I rebounded with school workouts, though.”
Nesmith figures he hurt his draft stock by attending a speed camp in Boca Raton, Fla., instead of staying at KU to work out.
“My shoulder was messed up at the combine,” he said. “And the speed camp didn’t teach me anything. I thought it’d help me get faster. I should have just stayed at school.”
Though several former Jayhawks have signed free-agent deals in the past few years, no ex-Jayhawks have been drafted since Ron Warner went in the seventh round of the 1998 draft.
