College Football's Top 100 Players of 2017

Who's the best player in college football this season? SI.com narrowed down an entire nation of talent to 100 names, and the name at the top might be a surprise.

As the 2017 college football season begins, we can only guess at the biggest stars of the year. Who could have guessed that Lamar Jackson would set defenses up and down the East Coast ablaze to kick off a captivating Heisman campaign, or that by the end of the year Alabama running back Bo Scarbrough would be an unstoppable force that chewed up some of the best front sevens in the country? While some of the names that dominated last season’s headlines have moved on to their first taste of NFL action, such as Clemson’s Deshaun Watson and LSU’s Leonard Fournette, a mixture of returning stars and new sensations are ready to take their place.

Below, SI breaks down the top 100 players in college football for the 2017 season. Our overarching reasoning behind each player’s ranking: If you were to conduct a fantasy draft to build a college football team from scratch, which players would you grab first? The ordering on this list is not intended to simply reflect past production, nor is it a reflection of the players’ status as potential NFL draft picks. It comes down to how dominant they figure to be this fall.