Tag Archives: NCAAF

College Football, NFL Draft

Early risers for the 2027 NFL Draft:

We’re one month into the 2026 college football season, and while some players have disappointed, particularly as it pertains to next April, when many of them were supposed to change an NFL franchise, plenty of names have also emerged after being barely talked about.

I’m not going to spend time discussing Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith lighting the world on fire as a Heisman front-runner, Florida’s Jadan Baugh further cementing himself as the top running back in the 2027 draft thanks to a dominant opening stretch, or Texas edge rusher Colin Simmons just tying the program single-game sack record (five) – along with delivering one of the most insane celebrations I’ve ever seen on a football field.

Rather, the purpose of this article is to highlight those types of guys who have really put themselves on the radar of pro scouts with their performances up to this point. Some of them obviously were to a certain degree already, but have gotten a lot more people to buy in, while others did kind of come out of nowhere.

Let’s go through four names on offense and defense each!

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NFL Draft

Early risers for the 2026 NFL Draft:

Usually, at this point of the calendar, I publish my current list of the top five college players. Yet, with how fluctuant that can be based on the ups and downs of the season, the fact that I can’t watch every single game – like I do for the NFL – and my heavy focus on their journey to the pros, I decided to write about something more draft-centric.

I also thought about simply doing a top five by position, but with how I structure my schedule, I typically haven’t more than 15 names for each of those. So instead, I opted for a different approach, as I’ll outline my ten biggest risers a month into the college football season (five on offense and defense each). Please bear in mind that this won’t be complete list, and feel free to put some more names in the comments.

Therefore, you won’t see stalwarts like LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier or Ohio State safety Caleb Downs listed, who I already viewed as top-five prospects coming into the year. Rather, I will outline ten players who have stood out to me, watching the games, and either have really gotten onto my radar or have already moved up my rankings, based on scouting them during the summer. Some of them may have transferred or earned a starting role, now having the opportunity to prove themselves (against a higher level of competition).

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College Football, College Football Rankings

Top five college players at each position a month into the 2024 season:

We’re four weeks into this collegiate season and it’s time for me to give my annual check-in on who the best players in the nation are currently. My rankings are largely based on the film work I did partially during this prior draft cycle for returning names and studying up during the summer, but also catching up on them in the early stages here. Obviously, I haven’t watched every single FBS game, but a large portion of those, I went through a bunch of the advanced numbers and tried to at least evaluate each of these (and other) guys in one more matchup so far.

Just to clarify, these rankings are concerning the top five players at each position for the college level – so how well they’re performing at right now and how I’d pick them in a team selection-like setting, somewhat detached from their surrounding pieces, as I’m trying to judge them individually. There’s a lot of overlap to how I’d stack the names up projecting forward to next year’s draft already (at least for the guys who are eligible), but I wanted to make that distinction here.

Let’s get into it:

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