Monday Morning Draft Thoughts: Week 5 College Football and Season Leaders
Monday Morning Draft Thoughts: Week 5 College Football and Season Leaders
What happened in Week 5 and how can it help us prepare for the draft?
Welcome back to Seaside Joe’s 2022 NFL Draft primer NOTES.
If you’re new to Seaside Joe, every week I send out multiple updates detailing the latest in college football and usually how it relates to the 2022 NFL Draft. College just concluded its fifth week of the season, the following is news, stories, and updates that I find interesting or relevant. Hopefully both.
McCall Watch
Every week, I talk about QB Grayson McCall. So far every week, McCall has been first in key national rankings. McCall went 13-of-13 and was pulled at halftime for the second week in a row, increasing his rate stats on the season and further separating himself from the pack.
McCall: 69/86, 80.2% (1st), 1,113 yards, 12.9 Y/A (1st), 14.7 AY/A (1st), 10 TD, 1 INT, 225 rating (1st), 2 rushing TD
McCall has a WIDE margin between himself and second place in Y/A (C.J. Stroud, 10.4) and AY/A (Malik Willis, 12.4), and passer rating (Kenny Pickett, 194.7), AND completion percentage (Spencer Rattler, 76.3). I do understand that McCall’s rate stats are aided by a low number of pass attempts and playing against lower-level competition in the Sun Belt… AND I DON’T CARE.
Pitt QB Kenny Pickett took another step towards the 2022 NFL first round on Saturday, dominating Georgia Tech. Pickett now has 19 TD and 1 INT on the season and he will be a Heisman candidate with another month like this in the ACC.
NCAA leaders through five weeks
Some other NCAA passing leaders……
Fresno State QB Jake Haener leads the nation with 2,230 passing yards, but he threw three picks in a loss to Hawaii this weekend.
Virginia QB Brennan Armstrong leads the nation in pass yards per game.
SMU QB Tanner Mordecai leads the nation with 24 passing touchdowns.
Florida QB Emory Jones leads all QBs with 438 rushing yards, followed by Liberty QB Malik Willis with 418 yards and six touchdowns.
Louisville QB Malik Cunningham has 10 rushing touchdowns to go with seven passing touchdowns and two interceptions.
Some NCAA rushing leaders……
Michigan State RB Kenneth Walker III leads the country with 680 rushing yards. He’s averaging 6.8 YPC and has scored eight touchdowns, but has only caught three passes for 17 yards. Walker had 264 yards and four touchdowns alone in Week 1 against Northwestern. He had 126 yards and three touchdowns on Saturday against Western Kentucky.
Texas super freshman RB Bijan Robinson is second with 652 rushing yards.
Auburn RB Jarquez Hunter leads the country with 10.6 yards per carry, having toted it 42 times for 447 yards. Hunter, a freshman, mostly ran all over Akron, Alabama State, but he had six carries for 65 yards against LSU this weekend.
Marshall RB Rasheen Ali leads the nation with 11 rushing touchdowns, only one more than Cunningham. Ali, also a freshman, has 489 rushing yards, 113 receiving yards, and he’s averaging 6.0 yards per carry.
Hawaii RB Calvin Turner leads NCAA running backs with 401 receiving yards. Turner has 184 rushing yards and has scored eight total touchdowns. The next-closes player is Fresno State’s Ronnie Rivers at 235 yards.
Bijan Robinson leads the country in total yards (819), followed by Syracuse RB Sean Tucker at 813 yards and Duke RB Mataeo Durant at 806 yards. All three backs have near identical touches and touchdowns. But Durant is the only of those players who will be in the 2022 draft and he’s playing as good as any second round pick possibly could right now. Durant had 19 carries for 114 yards against UNC in Week 5.
Some leading receivers….
USC WR Drake London leads the nation with 49 receptions for 670 yards. London was already seen as a potential first round pick, but given his production amid all the turmoil this season for the Trojans (like firing the head coach and conducting a widescale search to replace him), London might be a top-10 pick.
Western Kentucky WR Jerreth Sterns, a transfer junior, had 17 catches for 186 yards against Michigan State in Week 5. Sterns is now tied for fourth in catches and is sixth in receiving yards playing in an air raid offense.
FIU WR Tyrese Chambers leads all players with 27.7 yards per catch. Chambers has 17 catches for 471 yards and four touchdowns. In his last three games, against Texas Tech, Central Michigan, and FAU, Chambers has 10 catches for 325 yards.
Michigan WR Cornelius Johnson has 10 catches for 245 yards. But the player with the most catches/high YPC = UTEP Jacob Cowing, who has 24 catches for 585 yards, a 24.4 YPC average.
There is a three-way tie for receiving touchdowns: Pitt WR Jordan Addison, LSU WR Kayshon Boutte, and Fresno State WR Jalen Cropper each have nine.
Leaders on defense…
Troy EDGE Javon Solomon leads the country with 6.5 sacks and 11 TFL. He won’t be the in 2022 draft. Army LB Andre Carter II has seven TFL and six sacks in four games. Florida State LB Jermaine Johnson has 7.5 TFL and 5.5 sacks in five games.
Florida EDGE Brenton Cox, Jr has six sacks.
East Carolina CB Ja’Quan McMillian and South Carolina S Jaylan Foster are tied with four interceptions, most in college football. Notre Dame S Kyle Hamilton has three interceptions and could be a top-three pick.
Okay, now I have to come clean and say that College-Football-Reference, which I’m using right now, seems to have a couple of inaccuracies. So my apologies if later I have to revise any of this, but I think the errors are going to be minor and rarely impact the stats of these players. They just incorrectly had one player listed with 14 TFL (in a single game) and I think they’re missing a couple of stats here. OR they’re counting things different than other sites. Example: Oregon S Verone McKinley III also has four interceptions, but I just found that out… CFR accidentally left out his pick against Arizona.
NCAA Week 5 leaders
Western Kentucky QB Bailey Zappe had 488 passing yards against Michigan State. The other QB over 400 yards was Mississippi State’s Will Rogers, also in an air raid offense.
Illinois RB Chase Brown had 26 carries for 257 rushing yards against Charlotte. Eastern Carolina RB Keaton Mitchell had 15 carries for 222 yards against TULN. Other RBs over 200 yards in Week 5: BYU RB Tyler Allgeier, Texas RB Bijan Robinson, Georgia Southern RB Logan Wright, and Ohio RB De’Montre Tuggle.
Sterns led the country with his 17 receptions and 186 yards. He was followed by the 14 catches of Eastern Michigan WR Hassan Beydoun and the 170 yards of Miami (OH) WR Mac Hippenhammer.
More around FBS
Cincinnati CB Ahmad ‘Sauce’ Gardner got less Power 5 offers than his play may have warranted because he weighed under 160 lbs on 6’3 frame. The Bearcats pumped up his weight as a true freshman…kinda: “Even Cincinnati lied about Gardner a little: “In a game they’d boost my weight up a little bit. My freshman year versus UCF they said 185, and I was like, ‘Dang, I’m 185?’ I knew that was wrong, but it was good to see that on TV.””
Alabama RB Brian Robinson and Kentucky LB Jacquez Jones are the Offensive and Defensive Players of the Week.
These are the top-10 defenses by FPI: Georgia, Iowa, Wisconsin, Alabama, Clemson, Arkansas, Toledo, Cincinnati, Penn State, and Pitt. Important to keep stuff like this in mind when evaluating team and player performances each week.
FCS Notes
Eastern Washington WR Talolo Limu-Jones had 11 catches for 231 yards in Week 5.
“I’m from Moose Jaw, so we’re a gritty group.” An awesome in-game interview at a Canadian University game.
Mercer RB Fred Davis rushed for 276 yards and five touchdowns against Samford. Davis is a redshirt freshman.
Morehead State WR BJ Byrd had 14 catches for 191 yards and three touchdowns against Dayton.
Alabama A&M QB Aqeel Glass went 36-of-62 for 446 yards, 4 TD, 4 INT in a 37-28 loss to Grambling State. Next week, Glass faces off against Jackson State, the team helmed by Deion Sanders at head coach with Sanders’ son starting at quarterback. Sanders’ other son is also on the team.
Central Arkansas WR Lujuan Winningham caught eight passes for 211 yards against Abilene Christian. Winningham had 50 catches for 814 yards as a sophomore in 2019. He now has 584 yards in five games.
There’s more to talk about but I want to get this out ASAP and it’s been sitting in my drafts all through Sunday’s NFL action.