Photo by Chad and Tracey Wilson
The speculation is over and the mock drafts are now pointless.
Payton Wilson has become the highest-selected Hillsborough product ever chosen in the NFL Draft.
Wilson was picked in the third round, 98th overall, by the Pittsburgh Steelers on Friday night in Detroit. He leaves N.C. State after a historic senior season which saw him earn numerous postseason accolades.
In December, Wilson was the winner of the Butkus Award, which recognizes the top linebacker in college football. Wilson was also won the Chuck Bednarik Award for best overall Defensive Player. He was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Year and had double-digit tackles in nine of his final 12 games for the Wolfpack.
He is the first N.C. State linebacker to be selected in the NFL Draft since Germaine Pratt in 2019.
Wilson watched the draft with his father Chad, a former Orange High nose tackle who graduated in 1990, and his mother Tracey.
In the weeks leading up to the draft, there were mock drafts that listed Wilson as a potential late second-round pick. On Saturday, the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that Wilson doesn’t have an ACL in one of his knees.
Wilson first tore his ACL late in his senior season in a game at Cedar Ridge. He was injured as he delivered the opening kickoff and never played for the Panthers again. He missed Orange’s loss to Cape Fear, the last time a football state playoff game was contested inside Auman Stadium.
“He was a guy we had high on our board,” said Pittsburgh defensive coordinator Teryl Austin during a press conference on Friday. “We liked him as a football player. Obviously very productive, fast, really has good football instincts and everything you want in a football player. To see him where he was and have the opportunity to get him, we thought that was a good thing.”
Wilson is the second Orange High product to be selected in the NFL Draft in modern history. The only other one is Alvis Whitted, who was selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 7th round of the 1998 Draft out of N.C. State. Whitted went on to become the only Orange Panther to ever play in the Super Bowl. As a member of the Oakland Raiders, he was on special teams in Super Bowl XXXVII against Tampa Bay in 2003, the so-called “Gruden Bowl” where then-Tampa head coach Jon Gruden faced his former team. Whitted now the wide receivers coach at the University of Utah.
Wilson was a three-sport athlete at Orange. In 2016, he was a junior on the first Orange team to have a perfect regular season in 38 years. He registered 127 tackles and 39 tackles for loss, along with 13 sacks. Playing alongside defensive end Stone Edwards (whose career at Vanderbilt was cut short due to an ankle injury) and Keshawn Thompson (who played at Campbell for five years), the Orange defense allowed just two offensive touchdowns in eleven regular season games en route to the Big 8 Championship.
Legendary Orange wrestling coach Bobby Shriner’s final match came when Wilson won the 220-pound state championship in 2017 at the Greensboro Coliseum. In a crazy finish, Wilson led Hickory Ridge’s Dan Louba 4-3 in the final second of the third period. Louba shot in for a takedown as the clock expired. The referees ruled he scored the takedown before the final buzzer, momentarily giving Louba a 5-4 win for the state championship. And the first person to beat Wilson all year.
In a scene eerily similar to the Dusty Rhodes finishes in the Greensboro Coliseum during the mid-1980s, Louba began celebrating with his coaches. Meanwhile, Shriner appealed to the tournament director. Even though there were two referees, neither of them watched the clock as it ran out. The mat maids from Eden Morehead High (which, in another irony, had been a huge rival of Orange) said the clock had expired before Louba scored the takedown.
Wilson was declared the winner, Shriner’s 24th individual state champion. A month later, Shriner retired.
Wilson was also a lacrosse midfielder for two seasons, where he was particularly effective on faceoffs.
The selection by Pittsburgh continues the Wilson family’s unusual ties with the Steel City. Wilson’s older brother, Bryse, made his major league pitching debut for the Atlanta Braves at PNC Park in 2018 against the Pirates. Wilson won the opening game against Pittsburgh, throwing five innings. In July 2021, Bryse was traded to Pittsburgh, where he would spend the next 18 months before being designated for assignment and signing with the Milwaukee Brewers, where he has become an effective arm out of the bullpen.