Fleming and Blanton get their draft call

Darius Fleming hopes to find his old sixth-grade football coach someday soon.

This is the man who not only told the former Notre Dame outside
linebacker and brand new San Francisco 49er that he had no future in
football roughly a decade ago, but no present as well.

Fleming quit the next day, took three years off from the sport and
almost pushed football away for good to concentrate on bowling. But
when he did come back, Fleming never took his foot off the
accelerator.

Not when he was told that wide receiver probably wasn’t the position
that would provide him with his highest ceiling. Not when he hooked up
with trainer Elias Karras years later and threw up the first time he
got the “Elias treatment.”

And not now, he vowed, after San Francisco made the Chicago St. Rita
High product the 30th pick of the NFL Draft’s fifth round Saturday and
the first Irish linebacker to be selected in any round since Courtney
Watson in 2004.

Teammate Robert Blanton went earlier in the round to the Minnesota
Vikings. In all, four Irish players got the call during the three-day,
seven-round, 253-player extravaganza.

Wide receiver Michael Floyd (13th to Arizona) and safety Harrison
Smith (29th to Minnesota) gave ND its first multiple first-round picks
in a draft since Bryant Young, Aaron Taylor and Jeff Burris did so in
1994.

Floyd already has his new uniform number — 15. ND’s all-time leading
receiver wore No. 3 the past four years. He’ll join former Irish
offensive guard Chris Stewart on the Cards’ roster. The future
attorney put law school on hold by signing as a free agent last month.

Undrafted running back Jonas Gray announced on his Twitter account,
roughly 10 minutes after the draft ended, that he had signed a rookie
free-agent contract with the Miami Dolphins. Gray underwent
reconstructive knee surgery in November.

Offensive guard Trevor Robinson, offensive tackle Taylor Dever, kicker
David Ruffer and Gary Gray are among the other undrafted ND players
also hoping to catch on as rookie free agents.

Fleming and Blanton pushed themselves out of that mix with impressive
showings at ND’s Pro Day, attended by reps from 27 of the 32 NFL
teams, on April 3.

Fleming was in a traffic jam in Chicago when he received the call from
49ers coach Jim Harbaugh. He had just left his grandma Leona Nelson’s
house with a fresh hair cut and a fresh migraine, the latter from
watching TV and seeing other linebackers being selected ahead of him.

“I didn’t want to stress out about it, but it was hard,” Fleming said
via cell phone. “You keep seeing the picks coming up. People were
talking to me in the house, and it was like I wasn’t there. I was like
in my own little world, because I was driving myself crazy. So I
decided to leave. I couldn’t be there anymore.

“My grandma did call me back later. She said if anybody had walked in
the house after I got picked, they would have thought she and my aunt
were fighting, because they were so loud — and so happy.”

Fleming reunites with his old roommate, 49ers second-year nose guard
Ian Williams.

“We’ll probably be roommates again,” the 6-foot-2, 245-pounder said.
“Even before I was drafted, he kept telling me that the 49ers were
light on outside linebackers and, worst-case scenario, I could come
into camp and make the team.

“Then I talked to coach Harbaugh, and he said that they were light on
linebackers and that I had a real opportunity. Ian was right all
along.”

No one around Blanton had such a premonition, and he certainly wasn’t
anticipating where or when he’d get drafted on Saturday.

At the moment the Vikings called the 6-1, 208-pound defensive back
from Matthews, N.C., he was carrying a TV set while helping his sister
move.

“I got pretty excited,” said the fifth round’s fourth selection and
No. 139 pick of 2012 overall. “Of course, I yelled and jumped up and
down. Then I got back to carrying that TV set. The washer and dryer
were next.”

The former resident of Italy during a portion of his father’s military
career will fly from North Carolina, where he spent draft week, to
Minnesota on Thursday, but he still doesn’t know if the Vikings fancy
him as a safety or a cornerback.

Blanton played all but a handful of his 50 collegiate games at corner,
but scouts loved his ability to play safety, especially in a draft
year that was so lean at that position.

“I’ll play wherever they want me,” Blanton said. “I’m celebrating with
my family with a great dinner that my mom made. Then it’s back to
doing something I love, playing football.”

The Vikings apparently love something about the Irish players and are
suddenly turning into Notre Dame North.

Blanton became the fifth Irish player on the current Minnesota roster
Saturday, with three of those having been acquired this offseason.

Tight end John Carlson signed as a free agent on March 14, coming over
from the Seattle Seahawks. On Thursday night, the Vikings traded up to
get Smith in the first round.

Center John Sullivan has been with the Vikings since they drafted him
in the sixth round in 2008. Minnesota picked up ND tight end Kyle
Rudolph in the second round of last year’s draft.

“Got a lot of ND guys here,” Blanton said. “As long as I was playing
football it didn’t matter the situation, I was going to be excited
regardless.”

The same holds true for Fleming, though he has long admired Harbaugh
from the three times he faced the 49ers head coach when he was leading
the Stanford program.

“He’s very hard-nosed and into the game, and you want a coach with
that kind of passion,” Fleming said. “I know some people wonder about
his coaching style, but I love it. He cares so much about the game and
wants to win so bad, and he wants guys on his team that are like that.
And I am.”

And what about the sixth-grade coach?

“What I want to do if I ever see that coach again is to thank him,”
Fleming said. “I probably wouldn’t be in this situation right now if
he hadn’t motivated me the way he did, so everything happens for a
reason.”