When USC cornerback Mekhi Blackmon heard his name called with the final pick of Day 2 of the NFL draft Friday night, it made official just how far he's come in his football journey.

Blackmon was drafted at the very end of the third round with the 102nd overall pick by the Minnesota Vikings.

"I was anticipating my name getting called earlier, but I can't complain. Thank God you guys came and got me," Blackmon said in an interview with Vikings in-house media. "I took a visit with you guys two, three weeks ago. I fell in love with the facilities, and me and my teammate happened to visit at the same time so we was talking about [it]. For you guys to get me the last pick in the third, I'm real honored and thankful."

That teammate was USC wide receiver Jordan Addison, who was selected by Minnesota in the first round of the draft Thursday.

Overall, Blackmon was the third Trojan drafted as edge rusher Tuli Tuipulotu went in the second round to the Los Angeles Chargers on Friday.

Addison had been on NFL teams' radar for a while with his Biletnikoff Award season at Pitt in 2021 and Tuipulotu was generating draft buzz even before his junior season, but this time a year ago not many would have projected Blackmon as a third round pick.

Needless to say, his transfer from Colorado to USC paid off big time.

Blackmon has felt that way for some time, though, reflecting back on his one season as a Trojan in the week leading up to the Cotton Bowl.

"Everything the coaches preached to me from a work ethic standpoint, it all worked out for me. I'm glad I made this decision. It's probably the best decision I ever made in my life, so I'm real happy I came here," he said then.

For that matter, Blackmon has moved himself closer and closer to realizing this football dream with every step on his journey, from starting off in the JUCO ranks to his time at Colorado, then USC and now, after all of that, the NFL.

"It's been a long road, but I just kept my head up, kept my eyes forward," Blackmon said in that interview with TrojanSports.com back in December. "I thank God and everybody else for keeping me going because there was a lot of times I could have stopped and didn't have things to look forward to, but I stayed moving forward."

Coming out of Menlo-Atherton High School in northern California, Blackmon was lightly recruited and spent the 2017 season in the junior college ranks at College of San Mateo.

"Very humbling. Kind of had to take a look at yourself," Blackmon said previously.

After a season at San Mateo, Blackmon made the move to Colorado, starting three games as a sophomore. He redshirted in 2019 as a shoulder injury limited him to just four games, but he started all six games in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and emerged with his best season yet in 2021 before entering the transfer portal.

He then elevated his performance to another level with the Trojans, finishing last season with 66 tackles, 3 interceptions and 2 tackles for loss, impressing NFL scouts with both his sure tackling and coverage skills.

After making the draft pick Friday night, Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah spoke to the value of Blackmon's USC season in the scope of his draft stock.

"Obviously, there's always a growth curve for players, but I think a lot of it was you go to a program that maybe wasn't that successful and you go to USC where they were in a national title competition the whole year, so playing with that urgency, the every game mattering thing -- something he spoke about really being important to him -- and obviously getting to go against a player like Addison every day in practice and playing against Caleb Williams and all those things certainly helped his maturity," he said.

Blackmon has the potential to play outside corner or nickel with the Vikings. The team only had one pick on Day 2 of the draft and traded down from No. 87 to No. 102, hoping Blackmon would still be on the board at that point.

"Really excited about Mekhi Blackmon ... super instinctive corner," Adofo-Mensah said. "He's one of those guys who throughout the route there's a calculation going on at any moment -- there's two things a receiver can do and he's trying to shrink the world for the receiver. He plays really physical, plays with good vision on the quarterback. I think there's a skill to knowing when to look at the ball -- not everybody has it, he does. Somebody who's aggressive in the run game.

"Just somebody we're really happy we got where we did. He was somebody we wanted to take in our [original Day 2] pick before the trade back, but we got a good deal and decided to take the chance."

All Blackmon has ever needed was for teams to take a chance on him -- first San Mateo College, then Colorado, USC and now the Vikings.

"Very humble and thankful for what I went through because that molded me into the person I am today," Blackmon said previously about his journey. "You've got to go through hard things to be able to deal with hard things, so that's how I look at it."