Mel Kiper has a Kentucky Wildcat in his First 2025 NFL Mock Draft

There are a few traditions that immediately follow the end of the college football season. Once the final AP Poll is released, we have “Way-Too-Early” Top 25s for the next college football season. The NFL Mock Drafts aren’t far behind.

Even though there are still three NFL games left in the 2024 season, the draft order is locked in and the film has been evaluated. This is the unofficial start of NFL Draft season.

The festivities formally get underway next week when hundreds of front office officials travel to Mobile for the Senior Bowl. Kentucky will have two representatives at the NFL Draft showcase, Maxwell Hairston and Deone Walker. One of them made Mel Kiper’s first NFL Mock Draft and it might surprise you.

The former Kentucky defensive lineman was viewed as one of the top defensive tackles in the 2025 NFL Draft class ahead of his junior campaign. Walker’s stock has slipped ahead of the pre-draft process, but there’s plenty of time to change it.

In a surprising twist, Maxwell Hairston has moved up, despite an injury setback that forced him to miss almost two months of the 2024 season. Kiper has the former Kentucky cornerback coming off the board at No. 30 overall to the Buffalo Bills.

“Drafting another wide receiver should be considered, and the defensive line could use reinforcements. But the cornerback spot jumps out. Buffalo allowed opponent QBs to complete 68.5% of their passes, 28th in the league, and Rasul Douglas is on an expiring deal,” Kiper writes.

“Hairston is a pro-ready prospect. His awareness, burst to the ball and route-recognition skills are top-notch. Hairston was a little banged-up this season, as a shoulder injury limited him to seven games and one interception. But he had five picks the previous year, showing his ball skills.”

In addition to last year’s absence, he played with a cast on his hand for most of the 2023 Kentucky football season. He doesn’t have a ton of healthy reps under his belt, but he showed enough ball skills to catch the eyes of scouts. Hairston is in a position to have his name called on day one in Green Bay if he has a solid spring.

Kentucky has only had four first round NFL Draft picks since Tim Couch went No. 1 overall in 1999: Dewayne Robertson (2003), Bud Dupree (2015), Josh Allen (2019), and Jamin Davis (2021).

[Mel Kiper: NFL Mock Draft 1.0]