2023 NFL Draft: Week 6 Stock Report

Another great week of college football is in the books, so it's time to check our stocks. Who is taking flight and who is on the descent?

The 2022 college football season is charging on, and we have yet to have a boring week. There are new teams arriving on the scene that we haven’t heard from for a long time, like Tennessee and some who are relevant for the first time, like Kansas. 

This is a great thing for college football as a whole, though, because it shows that talent is spreading around the country, and we are finally getting some variety in the sport. It’s refreshing to be able to write about different teams and players every week and at every position. It shows football is thriving and growing to levels that were unexpected. 

This not only helps universities across the country gain notoriety by putting new eyes on a given school, but it also gives more athletes an opportunity to go to college and become successful. There have been so many big performances and new stars coming into sight that it’s hard to even keep track. 

Some of the players we will talk about today have quietly put together incredible first months of their season while completely taken college football by storm. Now, let’s see who is making the list this week.

Taking Flight

QB Hendon Hooker, Tennessee

Sing it with me. Good Ol’ Rocky Top Wooooo, they finally have something to cheer! All kidding aside, Tennessee is for real this season. Led by fifth-year senior Hendon Hooker, this has become one of the most explosive offenses in the country and they are destroying opponents every week. The only close game so far came in Week 2 versus Pittsburgh and even then, Hooker took over willing his team to an overtime win. Honestly, this is a very different player from what we have seen in the rest of his career. Hooker is playing with supreme confidence and it has made Tennessee a lethal opponent. You could always see the talent in him, but he finally put it all together this year. He is an extremely smart football and isn’t trying to do too much, he is taking what the defense gives him and attacks accordingly. In his last game, he threw all over LSU in the first half and then let the run game take control in the second half. It’s very early in the season, but Hooker has to be at the top of the list when it comes to Heisman candidates. The improvements he has made are so extreme that before the season he was at best a middle-round draft prospect, but now he must be considered a first-round prospect.

WR Quentin Johnston, TCU

Coming into the season, Johnston was considered a top-tier prospect, but surprisingly wasn’t getting the production that was expected. That all changed this past week in a huge game versus Kansas. Johnston showed how imposing a force he can be with 14 catches for 206 yards and a touchdown, many of which were highly contested catches. He is a massive receiver and possesses an impressive amount of athleticism, but as he would admit needed to work on drops. He clearly has put in the work because he has caught almost everything thrown at him and is making contested catches look easy. It’s a great sign for a player when they can recognize their own weaknesses and can work on improving them. That is what we have seen in Johnston and it could really pay off for him come draft season. If he keeps up the production he had this week and proves drops are no longer an issue, we could be talking about an early first-round prospect.

Texas Offense

What seems to be a theme for Texas as a program over the last decade, is that it’s been a very up-and-down year. Starting quarterback Quinn Ewers was injured in Week 2 in a tight loss against Alabama and the team struggled to find an identity without him. Though the record says 4-2, this Texas team could easily be 6-0. Bijan Robinson was the highest-graded running back coming into the season but was off to a slow start. He now has four straight 100-yard performances and looks to have found his groove. The game against Oklahoma saw the return of Ewers and the Texas offense took off. Texas blew the “Sooner Schooner” upside down and shut out Oklahoma 49-0. This is the last season for Texas in the Big 12 and the conference is inconsistent, so if the team continues to play like this, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to see the Longhorns end their career in the conference they pretty much started as Big 12 champions.

WR Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State

Ohio State has put up big numbers this season and C.J. Stroud is getting most of the praise, but there is a bigger story developing for the Buckeyes. That is the emergence of Marvin Harrison Jr. at wide receiver. The son of Hall of Fame wide receiver Marvin Harrison, he has all the tools wanted in a receiver. He is big, wildly athletic, and has outstanding hands. He looked unguardable at times, amassing 131 yards on seven catches and three touchdowns last week, his third multiple-touchdown game of the year. Yes, Stroud deserves a lot of the credit for what their team has done so far, but at the beginning of the season no one even had Harrison on their radar and now he is the top playmaker for a highly touted Buckeyes offense. 

Descending

Oklahoma Sooners

Last week was one of the ugliest Oklahoma games in a very long time. It was honestly worrisome to see for the program as a whole. As I already stated, Texas played a great game, but Oklahoma gave no resistance. For a “Red River Showdown” game, it was shocking to see the Sooners play the way they did. It was uninspired, sloppy, and downright unacceptable to see them have under 200 yards of total offense. To think beforehand that Oklahoma would come into this game and not put up a fight would have been laughable, yet that is exactly what happened. This is now the third consecutive week that Oklahoma has had at least 40 points scored on them, the worst stretch of games in program history, and the team has been around for 127 years. This could legitimately be an earthshaking moment for the program and there is no easy fix, so it will be vital for them to make the decisions here. Especially since they will be entering a new conference next season. 

QB Tanner Mordecai, SMU

This is really disappointing because SMU had high expectations this season and started out great, but they have now lost three straight, looking very inconsistent during the losing streak. Outside of Week 1, Mordecai’s completion percentage has hovered at just above 50 percent and he is turning the ball over way too much. In five games, Mordecai has thrown six interceptions, which is already halfway to his season total last year. As a prospect, he was never going to be a flashy first-round pick, but his accuracy and timing with his throws made him an attractive prospect. To see these aspects of his game declining is very concerning because they are the cornerstones of his skills and he is looking somewhat lost. SMU has arguably the best wide receiver in the country with Rashee Rice and he dominated last week against UCF, but when it came to red-zone opportunities and in crunch time, Mordecai couldn’t get the job done. He looked flustered and extremely unsure of himself, so something needs to be fixed to give him his confidence back.

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