Road to the draft still leads thru Indy … sort of … Even though this year’s scouting combine was cancelled because of the pandemic, the NFL powers that be have still released the list of 323 players that would have been invited to Indianapolis this year. Not surprisingly, the list includes a whopping 14 players from Ohio State, along with 11 each from national champion Alabama, Georgia, and Notre Dame, and 9 from Florida.
And while the players won’t be going to Indianapolis this winter, the list is still significant in the sense that those invited to attend are the players that NFL teams want to see and that historically the players that participate in the combine make up the large majority of those drafted overall, and almost all of those selected in the first three rounds. Indeed, in recent years, 85-90% of all players that were drafted had attended the combine.
Still, no system is perfect, and every year certain players that were snubbed by the combine end up being drafted. According to GBN Chief Scout Larry Parker, this year’s major snubs include QBs K.J. Costello of Mississippi State and Tulsa’s Zach Smith; WRs Damonte Coxie of Memphis and Marlon Williams of Central Florida; Stanford OT Foster Sarell; Texas A&M C Ryan McCollum; DEs Raymond Johnson of Georgia Southern and Wisconsin’s Isaiahh Loudermilk; DTs Mustafa Johnson of Colorado, Jerome Johnson of Indiana, and Kenny Randall of Charleston; Miami of Ohio CB Emmanuel Rugamba; safeties Reed Blankenship of Middle Tennessee and Tariq Thompson of San Diego State; and Michigan LS Camaron Cheeseman. Of course, with the combine activities shifted to the pro days, all the players not invited to the combine will be starting from a position pretty much even with those that would have attended.
