Devy Stock Market: Devy Mock Draft, Round One

Nathan Powell

For this week’s Devy Stock Market, the DLF team conducted a devy mock draft to get a pulse on the top valued players in college football right now. Players eligible for the 2020 NFL draft were not eligible for this mock, only players in the 2021-2022 class.

The draft was conducted on our Slack channel and the only rules were individuals could not make back to back picks and they could make a maximum of three picks per round. This is round one of this mock draft and round two will be out next week!

1.01: Ja’Marr Chase, WR LSU (Nathan Powell)

1.02: Rondale Moore, WR Purdue (Tan Ho)

1.03: Justyn Ross, WR Clemson (Dwight Peebles)

Rondale Moore and Justyn Ross spent the off-season being valued as the top two valued players among these two draft classes. Both were in my consideration for the top selection, but I went with Ja’Marr Chase. Moore and Ross have put up underwhelming numbers in 2019. While Moore hasn’t played since late September, he started the season with 344 receiving yards in the first two games, he followed that with 43 receiving yards in the next two games. An up-and-down start followed by an injury causes him to slip one slot to number two overall after Chase with his breakout campaign.

Ross hasn’t quite put up the numbers many expected when they were taking him in the top five of devy drafts, only putting up 394 receiving yards and four touchdowns in his first seven games. His yards per catch has dropped from 21.7 in his freshman season to 12.3 in 2019.

Ja’Marr Chase earns the top spot for me with 749 receiving yards in seven games with 17.4 yards per catch and nine touchdowns. Chase is part of a trio of NFL bound wide receivers in the LSU wide receiving core with Chase, Justin Jefferson and Terrace Marshall who was taken later in this mock. I consider Chase, Moore and Ross the top tier of players available from these two classes.

1.04: Jaylen Waddle, WR Alabama (Tan Ho)

1.05: Rashod Bateman, WR Minnesota (Kyle Holden)

1.06: Seth Williams, WR Auburn (Nathan Powell)

1.07: Amon-Ra St. Brown, WR USC (Joseph Nammour)

The run of wide receivers continues into the next group of players with four more wide receivers to make the first seven picks wide receivers in this draft. Jaylen Waddle had a big freshman season with 848 receiving yards and 18.8 yards per catch. Had he had similar numbers in 2019, I would’ve put him in that first tier. With Devonta Smith and Jerry Jeudy both putting up big numbers along with Henry Ruggs being more productive, Waddle hasn’t been as involved with only two games with five catches and zero games over 100 receiving yards this season. Waddle is still a very good prospect and will likely be more productive when two or three of the previously mentioned wide receivers enter the NFL next season.

Senior Tyler Johnson was hyped for much of the off-season, but Rashod Bateman is putting up very similar numbers to the senior wideout while only being a sophomore. Bateman will receive similar hype that Johnson received last off-season and he should be the WR1 for Minnesota in 2020.

Seth Williams continues to check all of the boxes of a great wide receiver prospect. He had 534 receiving yards and five receiving touchdowns as a freshman in the SEC. That production has continued and elevated in 2019 with nearly matching his receiving total 523 versus 534 in three fewer games and eclipsing his touchdown total at eight in seven games compared to five in ten games in 2018.

The run of wide receivers ends with a player who I think is still living a bit off of his name and high school scouting ranking, Amon-Ra St. Brown. St. Brown had a solid freshman season with 60 catches for 750 receiving yards, but he hasn’t progressed like many expected, getting outproduced by Michael Pittman Jr. and Tyler Vaughns. St. Brown has 432 receiving yards and four touchdowns on the season. While his profile lends itself to a top devy pick, his production hasn’t backed that up in 2019.

1.08: Breece Hall, RB Iowa State (Dwight Peebles)

1.09: Max Borghi, RB Washington State (Austin Dewitt)

1.10: John Emery, RB LSU (Kyle Holden)

After seven wide receivers started the draft, a trio of running backs go off the board from 1.08-1.10. Freshman Breece Hall gets selected as the RB1 among these two classes. Hall was a relative unknown until a few weeks ago, and his production in his last three games shows why he will be one of the top running backs selected in devy drafts next off-season. Hall has averaged 130 yards for 2.33 touchdowns per game in his last three games.

Max Borghi is arguably the best dual-threat running back in college football right now. Borghi has averaged 4.6 catches per game for 37 yards per game in his first 21 collegiate games. Along with being a receiving threat, Borghi has also been an explosive running back, averaging 7.3 yards per carry with 100 or more rushing yards in each game where he has eclipsed ten carries this season.

John Emery was the number two running back in the 2019 recruiting class. LSU hasn’t needed much from the running back position with Joe Burrow putting up video game numbers, but Emery’s time to shine will likely be in 2020.

1.11: Trevor Lawrence, QB Clemson (Ryan McDowell)

1.12: Zach Charbonnet, RB Michigan (TheFFGhost)

The first quarterback goes off the board at 1.11 in this 1QB format mock. Trevor Lawrence was touted as the best quarterback since Andrew Luck all off-season, but he hasn’t quite had the season many expected. Lawrence’s AY/A has lowered from 9.3 to 8.6 this season, along with doubling his 2018 interception total of four in seven fewer games. Lawrence’s fall, if there is any, may just be a result of unrealistic expectations, but for Lawrence to be valued as the QB1 in devy, we will need to see some of what we saw in 2018 from Lawrence in the latter half of the 2019 season.

The first round concludes with another highly-ranked freshman running back in Zach Charbonnet. Charbonnet was Rivals number four running back in the 2019 recruiting class and he has had more opportunity in year one than Emery who was selected higher in this mock draft. He 531 rushing yards and eight touchdowns, becoming a bigger part of the offense in recent weeks. In his last four games, Charbonnet has averaged 15 carries for 78 yards per game with six touchdowns. If Charbonnet continues to increase his role in the offense, he will be an early pick in devy drafts where he isn’t already owned.

nathan powell
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