2022 NFL Draft: Top 32 Pro Prospects First Look

A few months back I was debating with one of the many dummies on this site who constantly whine that Miami will never "be back" if it continues to lose battles for 5 stars to Bama. I pointed out that Miami's historical success was not built on outrecruiting Bama and bag schools for 5 star players, it was built on finding the under-the-radar prospects who might a year or two to develop, then turn into top draft picks in year 3 and 4. The problem is that a sizeable percentage of the fanbase are impatient morons who want to kick a kid to the curb because he isn't an all-american his freshman year or gets put on the field before he's ready and looks terrible. To prove this point, I bet the dummy that 2 star Zion Nelson would end up being a higher draft pick than 5 star Alex Leatherwood (looking like a 2nd rounder now). Of course, the dummy thought this was outrageous and there was zero chance of that happening. I'm not going to call the dummy out by name, but you know who you are.
Who do you think is the bigger impact college player, leatherwood or nelson?

This whole under the radar stuff is 78% fiction. Miami evaluated well and recruited well. More kids overall were ‘under the radar’ back before the internet tuned up the ‘radar.’ But we got some top national top kids, and many top local kids.
 
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Who do you think is the bigger impact college player, leatherwood or nelson?

This whole under the radar stuff is 78% fiction. Miami evaluated well and recruited well. More kids overall were ‘under the radar’ back before the internet tuned up the ‘radar.’ But we got some top national top kids, and many top local kids.

Impact? How do you measure that? If Bama played another one of their 5 star OL at LT, is there a big drop off? I don't think so. They still have the same dynamic offense. Where is Miami without Nelson? Probably a 4-5 win team with a dead QB. I'd argue that Nelson was more valuable to Miami than Leatherwood was to Bama.

And which is more impressive? That Bama developed one of the top rated tackle prospects in several years into a 2nd rounder or that Miami developed a 2 star player without any other P5 offers into a likely mid first round pick? Sure Leatherwood can tell a recruit about how much fun it was to win a national championship, but Nelson can tell those recruits how fun it is to have 20 million more dollars than Leatherwood in his pocket because the U did a better job turning him into the player he is.
 
Figured I would bump this with the 2022 NFL Draft around the corner. By my count, OP's link correctly predicted (give or take) 10 first-round prospects for this year's draft.
 
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Daniel Jeremiah posted his top 150 for this years draft:




Georgia-11
Alabama-8
Cincinnati-7


ACC:

UNC-3
Pittsburgh-2
Clemson-1
N.C. State-1
UVA-1
VT-1
WF-1
BC-1
Miami-0
 
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