With the end of the college football season comes the inevitable list of players leaving school early for the NFL. The list as of the January 17, 2020 deadline was 106 names long. Some are given as players who are elite and will be easy first or second round draft picks. Others are clearly cases of people being in their ear, telling them how good they are, and jumping into the league with questionable futures ahead. Many are looking to sites such as football-betting.pro ahead of the NFL Draft.
Here is a list of some of the players you could or could not be seeing next year in the NFL.
Chase Young, the junior defensive end from Ohio State, was a given to come out one year early. He has been on this path for years. Delpit was a five-star recruit coming out of DeMatha High School in Maryland. He became one of the most formidable defensive player sin the country and a finalist for the 2019 Heisman Trophy. Delpit also won the Bronko Nagurski Award as the top defensive player in the country. He figures to be either #1 or #2 overall in the draft.
Cam Akers; we included him because it is a curious discussion as to his future. Akers was a five-star running back out of Clinton, Mississippi when he signed with Florida State. He has a good but unspectacular career. That has been hampered by coaching changes, (he has played for three head coaches in three years), and constant tumult around the program. He would likely benefit from one more year of solid production. But it is hard to blame him for wanting to bail on Tallahassee.
Lynn Bowden, Jr. from Kentucky is going to be a fun one to watch to see where he goes. Technically he is a wide receiver. But he has also returned kickoffs and punts. And he has played running back this season. And because of injuries, he ended the year as the starting quarterback. The guy is explosive with his speed and has great football instincts. He is not really NFL quarterback material, but he would be a great addition at receiver, or special teams, with the option to use him as a slot back. It is a wide-open storyline based on whichever team picks him up.
Grant Delpit; Safety/LSU. If Delpit could have left after his sophomore year, he would have been a top10 draft pick. He was by far the best defensive in the country in 2018. He was a unanimous All American and a finalist for the Nagurki Awarsd as just a sophomore. In his junior season he was hobbled by injuries that caused him to miss some games. Yet when he played, he was still a game changer. He finished the season with 74 tackles and five interceptions, despite playing hobbled much of the year. He wound up winning the Jim Thorpe Award as the best defensive back in the country. Still bigger yet was his performance in post season play as the Tiger won the national championship in New Orleans. He will be a certain first round draft pick.
Jacob Eason is another curious entry into the draft. He was a five star quarterback recruit out of Washington who decided to go cross country to Georgia for college. Once there he was in competition with Justin Fields. Eason lost the starting job and transferred back home where he would sign with the Washington Huskies. Fields also lost his starting the following year, to Jake Fromm, and moved on to Ohio State. Fromm had a subpar career at Georgia but is in this upcoming draft as an early entrant. But as for Eason, the son of former NFL quarterback Tony Eason, wound up with over 3,000 yards passing, but he was inconsistent from week to week. He also finished with 23 touchdowns but eight interceptions.
Tee Higgins, the receiver from Clemson, made a huge name for himself the last two seasons. He was a five-star recruit going to Clemson. Once there, he produced one of the school’s most impressive sophomore campaigns in 2018 in his first full year as a starter and followed up with a spectacular junior campaign to place himself among the top receivers in Clemson’s illustrious lineage at the position. At th end of the regular season, he was a First-team All-ACC selection, with 52 catches for a team-high 1,082 yards and 13 receiving touchdowns. At 6-4, 215, he has the size and speed to play at the next level and figures to be one of the first five receivers taken in the draft.
No matter how you look at the list, there is a lot of talent entering the league next year.
