Another day; another set of bowls … There will be four more bowl games on Thursday including the Fenway Bowl with Boston College essentially hosting SMU (11 AM ET; ESPN); the Pinstripe Bowl with Rutgers essentially hosting Miami (2:15 PM ET; ESPN); the Pop-Tarts (really!!) Bowl between North Carolina State and Kansas State (5:45 PM ET; ESPN); and the Alamo Bowl between Oklahoma and Arizona (9:15 PM ET; ESPN). Unfortunately, as with almost all the preliminary bowls, most of the top prospects have already left school and begun prep for the upcoming draft. However, there are a couple of pretty good OGs to watch in the Fenway game including BC’s Chritian Mahogany (#73, 6-3, 325), who could get some late second-day consideration and SMU’s Justin Osborn (#51, 6-4, 315). The Mustangs also have a decent later round type DE in Elijah Roberts (#5, 6-3, 280), a full-sized player who had 8.5 sacks this fall. Just down the road in New York, Rutgers has a couple of players to watch for the future in rising RB Kyle Monangai (#5, 5-9, 210), who led the BIG 10 in rushing this fall and OLB Mo Toure (#1, 6-2, 240) who had 7.5 sacks on the year. The Scarlets Knights’ opponent Miami, though, is example A of the ‘what if they gave a bowl and nobody came’ genre as none of the Hurricanes’ top prospects including QB Tyler Van Dyke who is in the transfer portal, along with safeties Kam Kinchens and James Williams and OG Javion Cohen who are now in draft prep will play. Meanwhile, the Arizona-Oklahoma match-up in the Alamo Bowl could actually have been close to a first-round game in a 12-team CFP playoff as the Sooners are ranked 12th and the surprising Wildcats 14th. Still, OU OT Tyler Guyton, a top 15 candidate for the upcoming draft, the best prospect on either team and the best prospect from any team playing Thursday won’t play; neither will star Sooners’ QB Dillon Gabriel who is transferring to Oregon. However, the Sooners should have several decent second-tier prospects available in LB Danny Stutsman (#28, 6-2, 240) who has some later second-day potential, along with veteran OT Walter Rouse (#75, 6-5, 325) and TE Austin Stogner (#81, 6-5, 260). At the same time the Arizona guys to watch in San Antonio wear #11: veteran DE Taylor Upshaw (#11, 6-4, 270) who had 8.5 sacks on the season and redshirt freshman QB Noah Fifita (#11, 5-11, 195) who is probably too small to play the position in the pros but is still one of the more exciting young dual-threat QBs in the country.
