Combine diary: Cliff Matthews

In the last four years, no South Carolina football player started more games than Cliff Matthews. The defensive end from Cheraw started 47 games, amassing 149 tackles, 15.5 sacks and 26 tackles-for-loss, but Matthews is moving on to the next stage of his career – the NFL. Matthews will provide GoGamecocks with a diary of his experiences between now and April 28, when the NFL Draft begins in New York.

Matthews flew into Indianapolis along with former teammate Ladi Ajiboye for the NFL Combine on Friday morning to begin what may be the most important four days of his draft preparation. Matthews will be in Indianapolis until Monday, meeting with NFL teams and working out and plans to give us a daily insight into what he’s doing each day. It was really exciting. I have never been to Indiana before. It’s nice.

So far, we started off with medical testing. They took us to the hospital, took a couple X-rays, some blood work, a urine sample, etc. Just a physical. I think I did pretty good. I don’t have anything to hide.

Then we had a little orientation, a couple of the NFL people they spoke with us after we ate dinner, pretty much giving us the heads up, what to do, what not to do, what to say, what not to say, how to act, basically a brief introduction to the combine.

Then we had meetings, oh my God meetings. Meeting with NFL teams. I spoke with a lot of people. I spoke with the Ravens; I spoke with the Redskins, Jaguars; I spoke with the Giants. Those were just some of them. Everything was pretty standard. I was prepared for everything. I don’t have anything to hide.

[Saturday] is psychological testing along with body weight and more meetings.

-- As told to Josh Kendall

This story was originally published February 26, 2011 at 9:53 AM with the headline "Combine diary: Cliff Matthews."