The NFL draft begins April 30 in Chicago, with all 32 teams looking for the next great pro talent to emerge from the SEC.

We’ll take a position-by-position look at the SEC’s draft prospects in the days leading up to the event, starting with running backs.

So many SEC teams lost running backs to the NFL after just three years — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Texas A&M.

RELATED: Rankings, potential NFL fits for the SEC’s draft-eligible RBs

Then there’s the fact that former Alabama running back Trent Richardson (No. 3 overall in 2012 to the Cleveland Browns) is the last player at the position to get selected in the first round.

It seems the running back position is as stacked entering the ’15 draft as the ’14 draft was at receiver. So what is the current buzz on the SEC running backs?

BIGGEST STAR: Todd Gurley, Georgia

Gurley has at least four things working against him:

  1. He’s a health concern, and he’s coming off a torn ACL that prevented him from participating in the NFL Combine or Georgia’s pro day.
  2. Running backs in the NFL have been devalued. The last two seasons, not a single running back got selected in the first round.
  3. Seattle re-signed Marshawn Lynch. Several smart NFL draft analysts thought Gurley to Seattle was a strong possibility if the Seahawks parted ways with their star running back, but that didn’t happen.
  4. This is one of the deepest running back classes in recent memory. Why draft Gurley in the first round when you can get another player and then grab, say, Alabama’s T.J. Yeldon in the third?

Then there’s Gurley’s talent. It may be enough to get him picked at the end of the first round, despite all those things working against him.

RISING: Jalston Fowler, Alabama

Fullback may be a position destined to exist on the verge of extinction in the NFL. But Fowler is the kind of every-man tool that NFL teams crave, able to block, run the ball in short-yardage situations and catch out of the backfield at 5-foot-11, 254 pounds. He’s also got the ability to play special teams.

It seems likely that Fowler will get drafted, maybe even early on the third day.

“Jalston Fowler, he’s been my favorite for a long time,” NFL Network analyst Charles Davis said, according to AL.com. “To watch him go through the stuff today, to see the one-handed catch that he made, all he did was confirm what I thought about him.

“I had a personnel guy tell me, ‘It wouldn’t matter to me whether he ran routes or did anything today. I’m hoping nobody sees any more of him. If they haven’t seen him on tape, the heck with them.’ And then he went out and [made that catch]. That’s going to get blown up and get a lot of play, but I think he’s clearly the best fullback in the draft and clearly a guy that you can utilize quickly.”

RISING, PART II: Trey Williams, Texas A&M

NFL.com’s Gil Brandt in January named Williams as one of five players who should have stayed in school. At 5-foot-7, Williams didn’t run between the tackles in Texas A&M’s spread offense, and there’s little reason to believe that will change if he gets a chance at the pro level.

But his 4.49-second 40-yard dash at the Combine was one of the top performances for a running back, and he also excelled at the three-cone and 20-yard shuttle. If teams believe he can catch — he made 16 receptions as a junior in 2014 — they may draft him as a full-time kickoff returner who can occasionally take a handoff or operate out of the slot.

Once a strong possibility to go undrafted, Williams is getting some buzz as a late-round pick.

FALLING: Josh Robinson, Mississippi State

There are some who now think the vertically-challenged Robinson won’t get drafted.

Everyone sort of suspected he lacked top-end speed, but then at the Combine he ran his 40-yard dash in 4.70 seconds. Robinson tested low on other measurables as well.

CBS Sports recently gave him the “Most likely to be the next surprisingly good undrafted free-agent running back C.J. Anderson Award,” pointing out that short backs do well in the NFL and that Robinson averaged more than 6.0 yards per carry in three SEC seasons.

Again, as we mentioned for Gurley, this class is loaded with running backs. NFL Draft Scout ranks Robinson as the 20th-best back in the draft, projecting he’ll get selected in the sixth or seventh round. Normally, a player who finishes third in the SEC in rushing can expect better than that.

NON-SEC PLAYERS TO WORRY ABOUT

  • Melvin Gordon, Wisconsin
  • Jay Ajayi, Boise State
  • Duke Johnson, Miami
  • Ameer Abdullah, Nebraska
  • Tevin Coleman, Indiana

THREE BIGGEST QUESTIONS

  1. Will Todd Gurley get drafted in the first round?
  2. Who will be the second SEC back drafted: T.J. Yeldon, Mike Davis or Cameron Artis-Payne?
  3. How many of the seven early-entry running backs from the SEC will make an NFL roster?

THREE TO WATCH FOR 2016

  1. Derrick Henry, Alabama
  2. Jonathan Williams, Arkansas
  3. Alex Collins, Arkansas

RECENT BUZZ

  • South Carolina RB Mike Davis ran somewhere between high 4.3 and low 4.5 in his 40-yard dash at the team’s pro day, depending on whose stopwatch you trust. At any rate, he improved upon his official 4.61-second time in Indianapolis and drew rave reviews for being in good shape.”I’m always amazed,” Steve Spurrier said. “The guys are in the best shape of their lives right now, and you wonder why they don’t do that when they know they have four years to play here at the University of South Carolina. But it’s that way all over the country. When pro day and an NFL opportunity get there, they all get into tiptop shape.”

    Davis still is tracking as a potential late Day Two pick, like we projected in January. The strong pro day probably helped ease concerns about his physical conditioning.

  • Alabama RB T.J. Yeldon ran an identical 4.61 at the NFL Combine, and improved that to 4.52 seconds at his pro day, at least hand-timed. But for some NFL scouts, that’s enough to show progress. He also reportedly excelled in pass-catching drills at Alabama’s pro day, making a case that he’s an all-around back, which pro teams love.As a potential third-round pick, some NFL evaluators are saying he’s undervalued.

  • Auburn RB Corey Grant ran in the upper 4.2-second range at the team’s pro day after he didn’t get an invitation to the NFL Combine. The former high school track star benefitted from getting hand-timed, but he’s probably still faster than 4.4 if he were to get electronically-timed. It may not get him drafted, but for a player who must fight his way onto a roster via special teams as a returner or a coverage guy, that’s a good skill to have.
  • Speaking of Auburn, the Peter King-backed MMQB.com interviewed RB Cameron Artis-Payne recently, asking the back why he spent two years out of football after prep school:

“Honestly, nobody recruited me, and I just didn’t have anywhere I wanted to go. I got a couple warehouse jobs locally. At one point I was making gardening tools, and I worked at a Nike warehouse that moved shipments, and in another warehouse that dealt with computer chips. I was just trying to help my family out. That’s why I signed with Under Armour, because Nike scarred me for life. The job wasn’t great. In the end, one of my old high school coaches got in contact with a junior college, and that worked out.”

  • Missouri RB Marcus Murphy ran 4.61 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine (what is it with that number?), and bench-pressed 225 pounds just 11 times.He improved to 14 reps at 225 pounds during the school’s pro day, but his hand-timed 40 — in the low 4.5s — hardly constituted an improvement. Arguably the best returner in school history ahead of Jeremy Maclin, Murphy is going to have a hard time making as big of an impact in the NFL.

    To have any shot at making a roster, he absolutely has to impress a team on special teams during training camp, very likely as an undrafted free agent. He’s much slower than many suspected based on his college play, but he’s got good vision and he’s elusive. Some team will give him a long look, even if he isn’t selected come May 2.