Top College QB Prospects Are Taking Their Lumps, But Getting Their Reps

Plus more notes on Week 8 of the college football season, including prospects at Kansas State and Texas.

More MMQB: Dak Prescott Is Grateful for the Cowboys Team Around Him | Ten Takeaways: Takeaways: Joe Burrow, Bengals Finally Hitting Their Stride | The Chiefs Are Growing Up Fast After Their Win Over the 49ers

The last few years, my Six From Saturday notes have been included at the bottom of my MMQB column on Monday mornings. This year, they’ll be published as a separate post each week. Here are my thoughts on this weekend’s college action, geared mostly toward what should be of interest to NFL fans.

1) Texas’s Quinn Ewers has cooled off. USC’s Caleb Williams had a significant hiccup last week. Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud had to fight through a tough start against an elite defense Saturday. And all of that is a good reminder of how important reps are for quarterbacks before they get to the NFL. Ewers and Williams were harder to pick apart on tape early. But with time, some warts showed themselves. Stroud, a year older, and draft-eligible a year earlier, has been through that a couple of times now. All will grow from the experience—and come out of it having more knowledge to lean back on when they get to the league.

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For comparison’s sake, Trevor Lawrence had 1,138 pass attempts in college. Stroud has 631. Williams has 441. Ewers has 142. Heisman winner Bryce Young, while we’re here, is now up to 790. This metric is usually a pretty effective one in figuring a quarterback’s readiness to play in the pros, because it’s a function of how much they’ve had to deal with and how much they’ve had to learn. And as we go along, it helps the NFL learn more about them, too.

2) A fun prospect to keep an eye on: Kansas State’s Deuce Vaughn. The diminutive fire-starter had 83 rushing yards on 12 carries, and another 38 yards on four catches in Saturday’s loss to TCU. “Very undersized, yet a productive runner and receiver,” said one NFC scouting exec. “Really good vision, balance and elusiveness as a runner. Good route runner that will be a mismatch for linebackers out of the backfield. Catches the ball easy. His size will always be a detriment. Most will compare him to [Darren] Sproles for obvious reasons.”

Those reasons, of course, being that Sproles was also short, versatile and a Wildcat. I’ve heard he’s seen as a likely third- or fourth-rounder, as a true, modern-day, passing-down back.

3) While we’re there, we spotlighted Illinois star Chase Brown in this space earlier in the month, and there’ll probably be more tailbacks to come—because the position looks loaded for April 2023. Texas’s Bijan Robinson may be the only first-rounder, but the depth of the group through four or five rounds looks outstanding. Alabama’s Jahmyr Gibbs, a transfer from Georgia Tech, is building a first-round case. And Ole Miss’s Zach Evans, Georgia’s Kenny McIntosh, Michigan’s Blake Corum and Auburn’s Tank Bigsby, among others, could be in play to go in the top 100 picks, too. The reason for that? To some degree, COVID-19 created a surplus at the position last year (one we’ve detailed led to the Chiefs’ finding Isiah Pacheco), and that seems to be spilling over to this year.

4) Some NFL stories mirror college football stories, and one, I think, will be the impact the new windfall in television money has on the willingness of franchises/programs to swallow big-money coaching contracts to get a fresh start. It’s something that’s been considered with the Cardinals’ early struggles this year, in being tied to Kliff Kingsbury’s job security after signing a new deal through 2027. And it’ll come up with Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher, who is now 3–4 in his fifth year, with the buyout set for $85.95 million for this year (with no offsets!), should the Aggie administration decide to move on. My guess would be that’d be too rich, even for their blood.

5) I’ve hesitated to say this too quickly on Ohio State sophomore Marvin Harrison Jr., but what we’re seeing is, regardless of numbers, the best receiver in college football and one of the best receiver prospects of the last decade. Just take it from Fox analyst Joel Klatt, not one for bombast, who said this on the Iowa–Ohio State broadcast Saturday: “I truly believe that this man right here on your screen will be the best receiver in the NFL in about four or five years.”

To me, and yeah, sure, I might be biased, he should be the runaway favorite for the Biletnikoff Award and maybe even on the fringes of the Heisman conversation. He’s been that impactful.

6) DJ Uiagalelei is another great example of the need to be careful in assessing players too quickly at the quarterback position. Going into his sophomore year, after how he’d looked in spots behind Lawrence and one start at Notre Dame, people were fired up over the draft prospects of the toolsy Clemson triggerman. A year and a half later, he was benched in a crucial spot in the Tigers’ 2022 season, down two scores to upset-minded Syracuse. Dabo Swinney says he’s sticking with Uiagalelei, but it seems like a matter of time before Cade Klubnik will be the quarterback there—and it might be a matter of time, too, before Uiagalelei is in the transfer portal. Which goes to show you that talent, which the big California native clearly has, means only so much at that position.