Jim Connell, and Wyatt D Wheeler

News-Leader

The three-day NFL Draft came and went, and 253 college football players were selected by professional football teams.

Dylan Cole was not one of them, but it didn't take long for him to be picked up.

Within minutes after the final selection of the NFL Draft, the former Logan-Rogersville and Missouri State star linebacker tweeted that he will become a member of the Houston Texans as an undrafted free agent.

Even though Cole's disappointed in the draft results, he's ready to give Houston his all.

"It's kinda bittersweet," Cole said in a press release. "Obviously I wanted to get drafted ahead of my prediction. I thought I was going to get picked up around the sixth round. When the seventh round came around, I just wanted to become a free agent so I could pick where I wanted to go and the best fit for me. Houston was that place.

"I've been talking to them for a long, long time. They didn't get a chance to draft me so they could fill their needs on the offensive side. At the end of the day, I'm happy to be a Texan and hope to be for a long time."

Houston spent four of their seven picks on the offensive side of the ball. They made a big splash during Round 1 on Thursday night when they traded up to select Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson with the 12th overall pick. They spent their Round 7 pick on Baylor center Kyle Fuller.

Cole joins a linebacker room in Houston that features Pro Bowler Brian Cushing, 2016 Second-Team All-Pro Whitney Mercilus and rookie Vanderbilt inside linebacker Zach Cunningham, who was taken in the second round on Friday.

Only two Missouri Valley Football Conference players went in the draft — both from Youngstown State and both defensive ends. Derek Rivers went in the third round to New England, with Avery Moss going in the fifth round to the Giants.

Cole finished his senior season at Missouri State as one of the program’s best defensive players ever. He was a unanimous Football Championship Subdivision All-American, led the nation in tackles per game and was named the top linebacker in the country in FCS by Division I Football Championship Subdivision Athletics Directors Association.

The 6-foot-1, 240-pounder was projected to go anywhere from the fourth to the seventh round by full mock drafts done by national websites in the weeks leading up to the draft.

Cole led Logan-Rogersville to a Class 3 state championship in 2011, rushing for more than 2,000 yards as the Wildcats took the community on a thrilling ride that ended in St. Louis and a victory over John Burroughs (and current Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott) in the title game.

At Missouri State, Cole focused on the defensive side of the ball.

He redshirted in 2012, then started all 46 games the next four seasons, earning All-Missouri Valley Football Conference honorable mention honors as a sophomore, then first team all-league accolades his final two seasons.

He gained experience playing at both inside and outside linebacker, and in both 4-3 and 3-4 defensive sets.

Cole’s performance at Missouri State’s Pro Day gave his draft stock a boost. His showing at Pro Day included 32 reps at bench-pressing 225 pounds and a 39-inch vertical leap. Those figures would have been the best among all linebackers at the NFL Combine, an invite-only event that put 330 draft hopefuls through physical and mental testing in Indianapolis in February.

Cole wasn’t invited to the Combine.