This Rock Hill star is taking his chances in the NFL Draft. He’s bet on himself before
Nick McCloud admits he rarely looks back. He’s always had people to prove wrong in the present. There’s always been something to push the late-blooming prospect from Rock Hill forward — whether that be into the ACC spotlight or onto the College Football Playoff stage.
And in these past three months? Again, he’s had almost no time to reflect.
He’s been busy chasing his NFL dreams.
Come April 29 and in the few days after that, McCloud hopes to be one of the hundreds of NFL prospects to hear their names called in the 2021 NFL Draft. The Lancaster native who later moved and made a name at Rock Hill’s South Pointe High School is anxious to learn where his next home will be, he told The Herald last week in an interview.
“I’m really more nervous than anything right now,” McCloud told The Herald on Wednesday. “Just not knowing when you’re going to get drafted, if you do get drafted. You talk to a lot of teams and do a lot of interviews, but you still don’t know much. So I’m still kind of nervous, but a good kind of nervous.”
The All-ACC boundary cornerback has grown comfortable and familiar with these nerves. After all, he’s had to bet on himself at every stage of his football career.
He did so as a senior in high school, when he changed positions from wide receiver to defensive back. It paid off in a slew of Power Five offers.
He did again as a senior at N.C. State, when he entered the transfer portal after a few splash-in-the-pan, injury-disrupted years in Raleigh. That resulted in finding a home at Notre Dame — and playing on stages and in front of a swell of fans only an elite few ever do.
And he did once more earlier this year, in January, when the graduate transfer decided to declare for the NFL Draft despite the fact that he had an extra year of NCAA eligibility to spend in college in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In anything you do, sometimes you gotta look back,” McCloud said. “Like when you’re going through something tough, you gotta be like, ‘Boom, I got through this, I can do this too.’
“I feel like I do that from time to time. But really, I don’t have time to do that because there’s always something else I gotta go get.”
McCloud preparing for NFL Draft
McCloud got an agent and declared for the NFL Draft on Jan. 5, just days after Notre Dame lost in the first round of the College Football Playoff to soon-to-be national champion Alabama.
After that, he went to work. From the second week in January to late March — pretty much until Notre Dame’s pro day March 31 — McCloud spent his days training in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with a group of other draft hopefuls, including UNC standout running back Javonte Williams.
In those months, McCloud started to get a sense of how draft analysts perceived him. He wasn’t selected to the Senior Bowl. He wasn’t invited to the NFL Combine. And that fueled him more, he said. (McCloud perhaps takes after his mentor — South Pointe legend and 2019 Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore — in this way: He holds a quiet confidence that’s covered by an easy-going demeanor. But he keeps track of the noise.)
“I feel like by the time pro day hit, there was so much to prove that I really didn’t have nervous emotions or anything,” he said. “I just had to go out there and get my respect.”
And by all indications, his pro day boosted his draft stock: He ran a 4.37 40-yard dash — a brow-raising feat considering the fastest people in the league record times of 4.4 or just above it — and notched a 34-inch vertical.
Is that enough to get the AP second-team All-ACC player and No. 1 cornerback on one of the staunchest defenses in the country drafted? Scouts aren’t sure.
But those results have at least forced decision-makers to review his tapes again.
Said McCloud: “Definitely been getting a lot more calls after pro day.”
‘Keep chasing it’
McCloud hopes to be the eighth player from the 70,000-person city of Rock Hill since 2010 drafted. That list includes a number of hometown heroes who still come back to visit — including the Steelers’ Mason Rudolph, who was at a Northwestern Hall of Fame event in February; Jadeveon Clowney, who traditionally holds football camps in Rock Hill during the summers; and DeVonte Holloman, who’s the head coach of the South Pointe varsity football team.
And even if McCloud goes undrafted, he can emulate others from York County who’ve traversed that particular path: Take for example Tori Gurley, a Gamecock great who signed with the Packers in 2011 after not being drafted. Or Anthony Johnson, who was signed by the Steelers in 2019.
Come the fall of 2021, McCloud hopes to be the 46th player with ties to York, Chester and/or Lancaster counties to make an NFL roster.
“From York County, the people who came before us, they set that standard and (told us) to keep chasing it,” he said.
And that’s exactly what McCloud is doing — hoping that running headlong into his dreams will pay off once more.
This story was originally published April 26, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
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