After what Wake Forest linebacker Aaron Curry's been through, helping turn around an 0-16 team seems like a cinch.

Curry, the top-rated linebacker in the draft and a candidate to go No. 1 overall to the Lions, said “one of the biggest turning moments in” his life came when he returned home after his sophomore year of college to find out his mother had been evicted.

“We didn't have anywhere to stay, at that point we didn't have the funds to get into another house,” Curry said Saturday at the combine. “Those are the moments that you think about in the fourth quarter when there's a play that needs to be made and when you know you have the opportunity to provide for your family for the rest of their lives.”

Curry said he seriously considered skipping his senior season to provide for his family – his mother, Chris, and older brothers Brandon and Christopher – but he received a third-round grade from the NFL's underclassmen advisory committee and his mom encouraged him to stay in school.

“I was concerned about our financial situation, whether we could make it another season, whether she could make another season,” Curry said. “She gave me her word that she could and she did. She told me that my senior season would be the best one for her to enjoy and for me to play in.”

She was right. Curry finished the year with 105 tackles, 16 for loss, and won the Butkus Award as the nation's best linebacker.

Considered one of the safest picks in the draft, the Lions have to decide whether Curry presents enough value to go at the top of the first round. Curry said he'd be comfortable playing any linebacker position, but he'd likely be a three-down strong-side linebacker in Detroit's 4-3 defense.

At this point, the other No. 1 candidates appear to be quarterbacks Matt Stafford and Mark Sanchez and offensive tackles Jason Smith and Eugene Monroe.

“I actually just looked at (Curry) before we came here,” Lions coach Jim Schwartz said earlier this week. “He looks like he's big, strong and athletic. You could probably find a lot of places for him to fit.

"He played SAM (strong-side linebacker), but it was interesting at Wake. He played an on-the-ball SAM linebacker which not many people play anymore. You have to be really strong to be able to do that. But they also, when they had slot formations – I don't want to bore you too much with scheme, but they put him out in space almost like a nickel back. Those are two sort of almost mutually exclusive skill sets. The fact that they had trust in him to do both, that spoke a lot about him."