Bengals draft Miami Hurricanes center Lee in the seventh round
Matt Lee was one of the major bright spots in another rocky season for the Miami Hurricanes last year — grading out as one of the best centers in the country, according to Pro Football Focus, and emerging as a true leader in his lone season at Miami — and now he’s the latest Hurricane to find a home in the NFL.
The Cincinnati Bengals selected Lee with the No. 17 pick in the seventh round of the 2024 NFL Draft on Saturday — No. 237 overall — after developing from a mostly unheralded recruit into one of the best interior linemen in the country.
Lee, who spent four seasons at UCF before transferring to Miami for his final season last year, was a second-team all-conference selection in each of his last two seasons of college, first in the American Athletic Conference with the Knights in 2022 and then in the Atlantic Coast Conference last year with the Hurricanes. Lee was also a first-team All-AAC selection as a redshirt freshman in 2020.
At Miami, Lee proved his accomplishments at a lower-level conference were no fluke. The 6-foot-3, 301-pound center started 12 games for the Hurricanes and any concerns about his relatively unimpressive athletic traits — the same ones that barely had him as a top-300 prospect in Florida when he came out of Oviedo Hagerty in the Class of 2019, according to the 247Sports composite rankings — quickly dissipated as he anchored a very strong offensive line in Coral Gables.
Lee could have returned for another season, with an extra year of eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but decided to enter the NFL Draft after five years in college.
