{"id":843,"date":"2009-02-23T10:36:26","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T16:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/homepages.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2009\/02\/23\/senior-lineman-a-possibility-for-2009-nfl-drafts-first-overall-pick\/"},"modified":"2009-02-23T10:36:26","modified_gmt":"2009-02-23T16:36:26","slug":"senior-lineman-a-possibility-for-2009-nfl-drafts-first-overall-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2009\/02\/senior-lineman-a-possibility-for-2009-nfl-drafts-first-overall-pick\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior lineman a possibility for 2009 NFL Draft&#8217;s first overall pick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/jasonsmith-combine-feb09.jpg\" alt=\"Jason Smith at 2009 NFL Combine\" align=\"right\" \/>Though the NFL Draft is still two months away, the league held its draft combine this past week, inviting many of the top prospects in the country to work out in front of a collection of scouts and other NFL personnel. Among the invitees were <a href=\"http:\/\/baylorbears.cstv.com\/sports\/m-footbl\/spec-rel\/021809aac.html\" target=\"_blank\">two Baylor offensive linemen<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nfl.com\/combine\/profiles\/jason-smith?id=71471\" target=\"_blank\">Jason Smith<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nfl.com\/combine\/profiles\/dan-gay?id=81825#player-profile-tab-set-1:player-profile-tab-overview\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Gay<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Smith in particular is drawing attention after a breakout senior year in head coach Art Briles&#8217; first season. <a href=\"http:\/\/nfl.fanhouse.com\/2009\/02\/18\/nfl-mock-draft-wrapup\/\" target=\"_blank\">The consensus across the country<\/a> has the Dallas native going as one of the first 10 picks in the draft, and <a href=\"http:\/\/myespn.go.com\/blogs\/nflnation\/0-5-382\/Handicapping-the-top-of-the-draft.html\" target=\"_blank\">more than one writer<\/a> has speculated that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mlive.com\/lions\/index.ssf\/2009\/02\/kowalski_on_the_huge_show_jaso.html\" target=\"_blank\">Smith could even be selected with the first overall pick<\/a> by the Detroit Lions.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to being an <a href=\"http:\/\/homepages.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2008\/12\/22\/pair-of-bears-earn-football-all-america-honors\/\" target=\"_blank\">all-American<\/a> on the field, Smith is also an excellent representative of Baylor off the field, having already earned his degree and always speaking very highly of the University. Both the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chron.com\/disp\/story.mpl\/sports\/6272094.html\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Chronicle<\/a><\/em> and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/spt\/football\/nfl\/stories\/021709dnspobaylorlede.38d43f4.html\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Morning News<\/a><\/em> ran very nice features on Smith recently.<\/p>\n<p>Sic \u2019em, Baylor football!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though the NFL Draft is still two months away, the league held its draft combine this past week, inviting many of the top prospects in the country to work out in front of a collection of scouts and other NFL personnel. Among the invitees were two Baylor offensive linemen, Jason Smith and Dan Gay. Smith [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}