Big Board 1.0: Top 10 Prospects After the End of the College Football Regular Season

The college football regular season is complete, and bowl season is about to kick off. But before, let’s take a look the NFL draft’s current top 10 prospects.
Big Board 1.0: Top 10 Prospects After the End of the College Football Regular Season
Big Board 1.0: Top 10 Prospects After the End of the College Football Regular Season /

The college football regular season is complete. LSU QB Joe Burrow won the Heisman Trophy. LSU, Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma have been selected for the College Football Playoff. So we’ve got a lot of evidence to dig through now on the 2020 draft class.

With that in mind, I figured the time was right to put together a top 10 big board—both for my own educational purposes and as entertainment for the rest of you who love lists.

Chase Young
Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

1. Ohio State DE Chase Young | Height: 6' 5" | Weight: 265 pounds

All-Planet. Heisman finalist. Generational prospect. Easy, right?

2. Auburn DT Derrick Brown | Height: 6' 5" | Weight: 318 pounds

Brown would’ve been a top-15 pick last year. He came back and won SEC Defensive Player of the Year. A super-sized, game-wrecking force.

3. Ohio State CB Jeffrey Okudah | Height: 6' 1" | Weight: 200 pounds

Okudah had top-10 overall potential coming into the year, but he needed to be more consistent.

4. LSU QB Joe Burrow | Height: 6' 1" | Weight: 216 pounds

You know his story, and I have more on him in my Six From Saturday column. Good, not great tools. But he’s an outstanding leader, a gamer—all that cliched stuff, etc., etc.

5. Georgia OT Andrew Thomas | Height: 6' 5" | Weight: 320 pounds

Probably the first tackle off the board, but it’s not a sure thing. Much will ride on the pre-draft process for a competitive position group.

6. Clemson S/LB Isaiah Simmons | Height: 6' 4" | Weight: 229 pounds

Maybe my favorite prospect, in that he’s an athletic freak who you’d need to find a home for. The safety/backer/rusher can do a bunch.

7. South Carolina DL Javon Kinlaw | Height: 6' 6" | Weight: 310 pounds

Another SEC lineman who stayed when he could’ve gone and has dominated as a senior. Though several scouts raised potential red flags about possible character issues.

8. Alabama WR Jerry Jeudy | Height: 6' 1" | Weight: 192 pounds

He’s the presumptive choice to be the first receiver taken, but I’m not so sure it’s going to happen that way for the Calvin Ridley playalike anymore.

9. Iowa OT Tristan Wirfs | Height: 6' 5" | Weight: 322 pounds

Wirfs is the fourth in a cluster of four tackles at the top. He’s a solid product of an offensive line factory who compares to Titans RT Jack Conklin.

10. LSU S Grant Delpit | Height: 6' 3" | Weight: 203 pounds

He was a consensus top-five pick coming into the season and was considered every bit the prospect Jamal Adams was in 2017. But he’s had a very up-and-down fall.

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And now, a few notes culled from calls with execs…

• No one has much of an issue with Burrow as the top quarterback, and some felt he should be as high as No. 2 overall on this list, which is in part a reflection of the makeup of the draft class. Young is clearly No. 1. Brown is a solid No. 2. And from there, it depends on who you talk to.

• I had two execs tell me to put Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa on this top 10 list, and a couple others say the same for Oregon’s Justin Herbert. For different reasons (Injuries/durability for Tua, inconsistency for Herbert), the assessments on each of those two will vary.

• The offensive tackle position will be interesting; lots of teams need line help, and it’s getting increasingly hard to find it. Like we said earlier, there are four tackles in the mix to go in the top half of the first round, with Thomas and Wirfs joined by USC’s Austin Jackson and Alabama’s Jedrick Wills.

• It feels like teams have cooled some on Jeudy, in part because of his size, and in part because there’s quality receiver depth in the first round. Both Clemson’s Tee Higgins and Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb were mentioned to me as players with a good shot at going in front of Jeudy.

Everyone loved Delpit coming into the season, and he’s slid some with inconsistent play this fall—in particular, his tackling. In fact, there are some execs who told me this week they believe Alabama’s Xavier McKinney, by virtue of his man cover skills, could challenge Delpit to be the first safety taken.

• Before the season, Georgia’s D’Andre Swift was the tailback mentioned in this territory. Month later, it was Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor who came up. I don’t think either will go in the first 10 picks. But both have a shot to go in the first round.

 We’ll see a bunch of these players during bowl season, then it’s on to the all-star games. It will be an interesting few months ahead…

Question or comment? Email us at talkback@themmqb.com.


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Albert Breer
ALBERT BREER

Albert Breer is a senior writer covering the NFL for Sports Illustrated, delivering the biggest stories and breaking news from across the league. He has been on the NFL beat since 2005 and joined SI in 2016. Breer began his career covering the New England Patriots for the MetroWest Daily News and the Boston Herald from 2005 to '07, then covered the Dallas Cowboys for the Dallas Morning News from 2007 to '08. He worked for The Sporting News from 2008 to '09 before returning to Massachusetts as The Boston Globe's national NFL writer in 2009. From 2010 to 2016, Breer served as a national reporter for NFL Network. In addition to his work at Sports Illustrated, Breer regularly appears on NBC Sports Boston, 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston, FS1 with Colin Cowherd, The Rich Eisen Show and The Dan Patrick Show. A 2002 graduate of Ohio State, Breer lives near Boston with his wife, a cardiac ICU nurse at Boston Children's Hospital, and their three children.