College Football
Shedeur Sanders: The QB1 Who Might Need a GPS to Find His Draft Stock
In the wild world of the NFL Draft, where dreams are made and shattered faster than a quarterback’s confidence after a bad game, Shedeur Sanders is currently playing hide and seek with his QB1 status. The Colorado Buffaloes quarterback, standing at a solid 6-foot-1 and weighing in at 212 pounds, seems to have missed the…
Each week, Yardbarker is monitoring the 2025 NFL Draft, scheduled April 24-26 in Green Bay.
From a Colorado quarterback to an LSU offensive lineman, here are five players we are tracking:
**Is Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders no longer a QB1 candidate?**
Sanders (6-foot-1, 212 pounds) didn’t work out at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine on Feb. 27-March 3 in Indianapolis, where he may have missed an opportunity to raise his stock.
“A lot of people want to like Shedeur Sanders,” ESPN’s Matt Miller said Tuesday on “The Dan Patrick Show.” “I don’t get the feeling that teams love him, not the way they do [Miami QB] Cam Ward. There’s a sizeable gap right now.”
[In a story published March 1](https://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2025/insider/story/_/id/44043082/ranking-nfl-draft-first-round-qbs-2020-2025-prospects-ward-sanders), Miller stacked Ward (6-foot-2, 219 pounds) and Sanders against the 19 first-round QBs since 2020. Sanders ranked second to last, ahead of Philadelphia Eagles backup QB Kenny Pickett, a former Pittsburgh Steelers starter.
Sanders — who completed 74 percent of his passes in 13 starts in 2024 — must make up ground at [Big 12 pro days](https://big12sports.com/news/2025/2/27/football-big-12-pro-day-returns-to-the-star-in-frisco.aspx) March 18-21 in Frisco, Texas. He’s expected to throw at the event.
**Texas WR Matthew Golden’s speed has him flying up draft boards**
At the combine, Golden (5-foot-11, 191 pounds) ran a 4.29-second 40-yard dash, the [fastest time among WRs.](https://www.nfl.com/combine/tracker/live-results/40-yard-dash/wr/all-colleges/)
On a March 1 episode of his podcast, [The Ringer’s Todd McShay](https://www.youtube.com/live/dRzH5dLXjq8) suggested Golden could pass Arizona’s Tetairoa McMillan (6-foot-4, 219 pounds) as the draft’s WR1.
“[Golden’s] crispness and sharpness on the football field is his secret sauce,” McShay said. “I think when it’s all said and done, I’m gonna have him as my No. 1 receiver.”
McMillan had 84 receptions for 1,319 yards and eight TD catches in 12 games in 2024. Golden, meanwhile, logged 58 receptions for 987 yards and nine TD catches in 16 games.
**Could Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart be a top-10 pick?**
On Wednesday, [The Athletic’s Mike Sando](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6125484/2025/03/05/nfl-mock-draft-execs-shedeur-sanders/) released his mock draft featuring thoughts from five NFL executives. One had the New York Jets taking Dart — who tossed 29 TD passes in 13 starts in 2024 — with pick No. 7.
“They gotta get a quarterback, and this might be where Jaxson Dart goes,” the exec. told Sando. “They are sitting there with Tyrod Taylor as their starter right now.”
[Pro Football Focus’ Nick Akridge](https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2025-nfl-draft-scouting-report-qb-jaxson-dart-ole-miss) gave the 6-foot-2, 223-pounder a second- or third-round grade.
Sando’s 2024 mock correctly predicted five of the draft’s top-10 picks.
**Is Virginia Tech’s Bhayshul Tuten a top-five RB in the class?**
At the combine, Tuten ranked first among RBs in the [40-yard dash (4.32 seconds)](https://www.nfl.com/combine/tracker/live-results/40-yard-dash/rb/all-colleges/) and [vertical jump (40.5 inches).](https://www.nfl.com/combine/tracker/live-results/vertical-jump/rb/all-colleges/)
On Thursday, [CBS Sports’ Chris Trapasso](https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/these-10-nfl-draft-sleepers-had-awesome-combine-workouts-but-are-they-actually-good-prospects/) gave Tuten (5-foot-9, 206 pounds) a second-round grade after his impressive performance.
“[Tuten] went into the combine as my RB3 in this class ahead of [North Carolina’s] Omarion Hampton,” wrote Trapasso. “He should be one of the first five running backs off the board after his athleticism clinic in Indianapolis.”
In two seasons at Virginia Tech, Tuten — a North Carolina A&T transfer — rushed for 2,022 yards and 25 touchdowns on 356 carries.
**Is LSU offensive tackle Will Campbell’s arm length a concern?**
Campbell’s arm length was measured at 32 5/8 inches at the combine, which may make playing tackle in the NFL more difficult. According to [ESPN’s Jeff Legwold,](https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/44067176/lsu-ot-campbell-arm-length-scrutinized-nfl-combine) a 34-inch arm length is considered the “minimum benchmark” for the league’s top pass-rushers.
Campbell, however, insists his arm length doesn’t matter. On March 1, he told Legwold, “You can go look at my tape, there’s not one play on there that when I get beat you say that’s because he has shorter arms.”
Per PFF, Campbell (6-foot-6, 319 pounds) [allowed just four sacks](https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/will-campbell/157106/draft-profile) in three seasons at LSU. He also earned a 2024 first-team All-American nod.
Perhaps that’s why the OT’s arm length doesn’t seem to be affecting his stock. In his latest mock draft, [The Athletic’s Dane Brugler](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6170788/2025/03/04/nfl-mock-draft-2025-shedeur-sanders-giants/) has the Jacksonville Jaguars taking Campbell with pick No. 5.
[Clark Dalton](https://www.yardbarker.com/authors/clark_dalton/1436)
Dalton is a 2022 journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He gained experience in sports media over the past seven years — from live broadcasting and creating short films to podcasting and producing. In college, he wrote for The Daily Texan. He loves sports and enjoys hiking, kayaking and camping.
The Red River Rivalry delivered its annual reminder that college football is not merely a sport but a sanctioned emotional breakdown with marching bands. Oklahoma players immediately going after Texas fans after the game was the kind of scene that makes the sport feel gloriously unserious in all the right ways. Somewhere between the cotton candy, the burnt orange, and the sheer volume of generational resentment packed into one stadium, the Sooners and Longhorns once again confirmed that this matchup is less about rankings and more about primal human behavior wearing helmets.
That is the beauty of Oklahoma-Texas: even when the football is only part of the story, the atmosphere still hits like a third-and-long sack. This year’s matchup carried the usual stakes, the usual pressure, and the usual promise that somebody was going to leave the Cotton Bowl acting like they had just won a heavyweight title instead of a regular-season game. The postgame jawing was absurd, petty, and completely on brand — which is exactly why the Red River game remains one of the best things college football has ever produced. The sport can keep its clean narratives and corporate slogans; this rivalry is content, chaos, and conflict with a marching band attached.
College Football
Penn State’s latest playoff audition comes with USC injury drama and a very Penn State problem
Penn State has turned Beaver Stadium into the kind of place that can make a football game feel like a courtroom drama with 110,000 people in the jury box. USC is arriving with multiple key players as game-time decisions, including star wide receiver Trent Mosley, defensive tackle Jide Abasiri and tight end Mark Bowman, and that alone would normally qualify as enough chaos for one Saturday. But this is Penn State, where the bigger storyline is never just the opponent. It is whether the Nittany Lions can finally stop treating marquee home games like elaborate exercises in emotional damage.
That is the real pressure cooker here. Penn State’s playoff path does not need a cute little moral victory; it needs a win that looks like a grown-up program, preferably against an opponent with enough reputation to make the selection committee blink twice. Lose this one, and the fanbase gets to relive the uncomfortable little stat that the top five most attended games in Beaver Stadium history would all be losses. That is the kind of fact that does not just sting — it arrives wearing a full ceremonial sash and asks to sit in the front row of the Penn State discourse forever. In other words, this is no longer just a game. It is a chance for Penn State to either build a playoff résumé or continue starring in the nation’s longest-running sequel, Big Crowd, Big Expectations, Big Regret.
College football spent Saturday doing what it does best: making absolutely no sense and then insisting it’s the new normal. UCLA went into Autzen Stadium, walked out with a win over Oregon, and somehow caused the entire sport to briefly ask whether James Madison is now the real center of the universe. That’s not supposed to happen in a serious sport. Yet here we are, staring at a landscape where the Bruins are undefeated, Oregon is suddenly on upset watch, and a bunch of transfer-era football genealogy has turned into the kind of bracketed chaos that makes conference realignment look like a family reunion with referees.
The funniest part is that the logic almost works. Bob Chesney’s UCLA team is riding the same football bloodline that helped James Madison become the sport’s favorite troublemaker, and now the Bruins have dragged that energy all the way to the Big Ten like a rogue wagon rolling downhill. Oregon still has the brand, the speed, the uniforms that look like they were designed by a racing simulator, and enough talent to scare anybody. But on this night, the Ducks were the ones getting audited by the chaos tax collector. If college football is a kingdom, James Madison has somehow become the sneaky little side street everyone keeps ending up on, and UCLA just put up a “best route to power” sign in the middle of Autzen.
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