(STILLWATER, Oklahoma / April 27, 2019) – Former Oklahoma State running back Justice Hill and defensive end Jordan Brailford were selected in the NFL Draft Saturday, as Hill went to the Baltimore Ravens with the 113th overall pick in the fourth round and Brailford went to the Washington Redskins with the 253rd overall pick in the seventh round.
OSU now has 125 players in history who have been selected in an NFL draft, and 27 players who have been drafted during the Mike Gundy era. Hill is the fifth OSU running back drafted since Gundy became the head coach of the program and the second OSU running back drafted in the past three years, while Brailford’s selection makes it six straight years that a Cowboy defensive player has been drafted and also marks OSU's third defensive lineman chosen in the past four years.
Brailford is the fifth Cowboy to be drafted by the Redskins and the first since they took OSU wide receiver Ethan Howell in 2000, while Hill becomes the first Oklahoma State player drafted by the Baltimore Ravens. OSU players have been drafted by a Baltimore-based NFL team, however, as six Cowboys were drafted by the Baltimore Colts from 1955-1979.
After a three-year career in Stillwater, Hill totaled 3,539 career rushing yards to rank 12th among all players active in 2018 and seventh in school history. He is one of only seven players in Oklahoma State history with multiple 1,000-yard rushing seasons, and scored at least one rushing touchdown in 12 straight games spanning the 2017-18 seasons to mark the longest such streak for a running back in Big 12 history.
A graduate of Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Okla., Hill built up a long list of honors that includes back-to-back first team All-Big 12 selections and back-to-back first team Academic All-Big 12 selections. He was also the 2016 FBS freshman rushing leader on his way to setting the OSU freshman record for rushing yards and being named a freshman All-American by the FWAA and USA TODAY. CoSIDA Academic All-America First Team honors, Doak Walker Award semifinalist honors and 2018 Big 12 Football Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors are also included on his long list of accolades.
Even in a 2018 season that was shortened by injury, Hill finished with 930 yards on 158 carries (5.9 yards per carry) with nine touchdowns. He fell just 70 yards shy of joining Terry Miller as the only players in school history to eclipse 1,000 rushing yards in three seasons.
Another Tulsa native and Booker T. Washington graduate, Brailford became one of the most productive defensive linemen of the Mike Gundy era at Oklahoma State. Last season, he earned first team All-Big 12 honors for the first time in his career after leading the Big 12 with 0.69 sacks per game. A team captain as selected by his teammates, he also ranked sixth on the team and led all Cowboy defensive linemen with 54 tackles on the season. Among OSU defensive linemen during the Mike Gundy era, his 16.0 tackles for loss in 2018 trails only Emmanuel Ogbah, who
had 17.5 in 2015 and 17.0 in 2014. Brailford was also just one sack shy of becoming the sixth Cowboy to post a season with 10 sacks or more, and his seven quarterback hurries ranked fourth in school history.
OSU has now had players drafted in 11 consecutive NFL Drafts going back to 2009. It extends the second-longest streak in school history and trails only the streak of 16 straight years from 1974-1989, when the draft format featured several more rounds than today’s seven-round format.
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