Movin’ on up; Part Deux … We are in the process of putting the final touches on our Big Board and hope to have something posted in the next few days. And in the process, a couple of noteworthy trends seem to have emerged. First, the players who appear to have been ranked in the top 10-12 positions have remained remarkably consistent, although there has been some movement within the group. In contrast, the next 30-40 range has been marked some remarkable shifts. On the one hand, there have been some well-publicized moves up into the first round area including by players like LSU WR Brian Thomas; IOL Graham Barton of Duke and Oregon’s Jackson Powers-Johnson; DTs Byron Murphy of Texas, Missouri’s Darius Robinson and Braden Fiske of Florida State; and CBs Terrion Arnold of Alabama, Toledo’s Quinton Mitchell and Ennis Rakestraw of Missouri. At the same time, though, there have been some less well-publicized moves in the mid-to-late second round area with almost as many players reportedly moving up into that area. That list includes WRs Malachi Corley of Western Kentucky and Florida’s Ricky Pearsall; Washington OT Roger Rosengarten; UConn OG Christian Haynes; LSU DT Maason Smith; and CBs Max Melton of Rutgers and Iowa State’s TJ Tampa. Bottom line is that area was already pretty deep talent wise and it may have in fact gotten that much deeper. And while we are at it, one other player who seemed to be more of a mid-third day type, but also seems to have gotten a lot of attention from pro teams of late is Houston Christian Jalyx Hunt. Hunt’s rather unique path to the NFL draft story has been reasonably well documented; he was a HS track star who ultimately played two undistinguished years as a safety at Cornell before transferring to FCS Houston Christian where he switched to DE and blossomed into an All-American posting 13.5 sacks this past season. Hunt is still as raw as they come, but is also a remarkably talented athlete with a ton of upside and as far as we can tell attracted the most position coaches to his pro day of any player in the country.
