Thanksgiving weekend is a huge time for college football. Many historical rivalry games take place across the country, and those matchups will feature players who the Detroit Lions, among many NFL teams, will be watching keenly with an eye to the 2023 NFL draft.
Here are 10 players I’m focusing on with draft eyes on rivalry Saturday in college football. Special emphasis is on games where the Lions will have a scouting presence, confirmed to me by various sources.
Blake Corum, RB, Michigan
This one probably deserves a bit of an asterisk; Corum left Michigan’s last game with a knee injury and could be limited, or perhaps even out. But that in and of itself is something of a trial for Corum for the Lions.
Corum is the kind of weapon Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson should love, a north-south speedster with excellent vision and balance through contact. When I watch Corum, I see a lot of Jonathan Taylor of the Colts, who led the NFL in rushing in 2021. He’s been consistently effective and dynamic in every game and shows he can create for himself after the initial blocking.
Detroit will be in the market for at least one running back this offseason with Jamaal Williams a pending free agent and oft-injured D’Andre Swift in the coaching doghouse. The Lions have seen Corum and Michigan multiple times already this year. Being able to have a big game against a premium opponent while fighting an injury would be a massive selling point for Corum’s draft stock.
Zach Harrison, DE, Ohio State
Harrison nearly declared for the 2022 NFL draft and would likely have gone in the range where the Lions landed DE Josh Paschal at No. 46 overall.
That is likely the same range (perhaps a little high) for the 2023 NFL draft, but the Buckeyes’ top draft-eligible defensive player has perked up his game lately. He had his best games of the season against Penn State and Maryland, the two games where the Ohio State defense sorely needed someone to step up and make plays.
Harrison is at his best rushing outside and using his long arms and strong shoulders to create an angle to the quarterback. He closes quickly but not always under control, and he’s not someone who wins consistently against double-teams or chips. Harrison’s run defense and vision for the ball have improved over the course of the season.
The Lions will have two members of the scouting staff in Columbus for Saturday’s game against the Michigan Wolverines.
C.J. Stroud, QB Ohio State
Stroud is very much in contention to be selected before the Lions make their first selection in the draft, even if the pick acquired from the Rams goes as high as No. 3 overall; he’s that level of a prospect.
Stroud throws an extremely accurate ball to all levels of the field and has the best anticipatory touch and rhythm of any QB to hit the league since at least Joe Burrow. What NFL scouts and draft analysts want to see is how well Stroud can improvise and make plays out of system. He’s been inconsistent when forced out of his design or moved out of the pocket; some of it (see: Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Iowa) has been spectacular, some of it (Maryland and Northwestern in the wind) has been suboptimal.
Michigan can bring pressure and also has some ability to make plays in the secondary. If Stroud can have another huge game like he did last year in Ann Arbor (394 passing yards, 2 TDs), he’s very much in the picture for the No. 1 overall pick.
Bryce Young, QB, Alabama
The Lions will have a definite presence at the Iron Bowl, pitting Young and his Alabama Crimson Tide against plucky rival Auburn.
Young’s draft momentum has cooled a bit from earlier in the season, when he was often projected as the No. 1 overall pick. He had a bad overall game despite the impressive numbers and one truly spectacular play against LSU and was off his game in the loss to Tennessee.
Like Stroud, Young is a very accurate passer from the pocket. Where he stands out is his ability to make plays outside of structure (the aforementioned play vs. LSU is a great example). He has struggled with his accuracy under pressure against good defenses in both of his years at Alabama; this year Young gets less help from his receiving corps.
Auburn has had a year to forget, but the Tigers do play pretty solid pass defense and have several future NFL defenders on the roster. Good chance for Young to ameliorate the worries about his size and ability to play a complete game against a good defense.
Owen Pappoe, LB, Auburn
Pappoe is one of the Auburn defenders who can help his draft stock in the rivalry game. He’s not big (6-2/225) but plays bigger than his listed size, especially in run defense off the tackles.
Pappoe is headed to the Senior Bowl as a do-it-all kind of off-ball LB. His stats don’t accurately reflect his range or power when he gets to the point of attack. Pappoe has to stay disciplined and not overreact to play action or crossing routes, something that he’s struggled with and something Bryce Young can exploit if Pappoe isn’t sharp. He’s generally regarded as a 75-125 overall prospect, which is the range where Lions GM Brad Holmes and senior advisor John Dorsey have both historically started looking for LBs in the draft.
Brian Branch, S, Alabama
Branch is a player who has been projected to the Lions in some mock drafts, and bringing him up here again is not done without reason. The Lions have already done some serious scouting homework on the 6-foot junior, who can align at both safety or in the slot.
That role is the primary need in the Detroit secondary, someone who can replace pending free agent Will Harris and with young Ifeatu Melifonwu constantly battling injuries. Branch is a fantastic athlete with speed that is both instant and can cover long distances. He’s been vulnerable to double moves and will overrun tackling lanes at times, which is why Branch is often projected in the second round despite having first-round athletic traits and plenty of great game tape.
Tanner McKee, QB, Stanford
McKee and the Cardinal face BYU in a game that isn’t really a rivalry or a game of much significance. But the Lions will have a scouting presence at Stanford for the game, and both teams have likely Day 3 quarterbacks to investigate.
I covered BYU’s Jaren Hall earlier this season and still don’t consider him a great option, but he’s on the radar. McKee is a player I’m personally even less excited about after watching the third-year player in three previous games.
In those games, at Notre Dame, at Utah and home for USC, McKee did not look any better than current Texans QB Davis Mills, his Stanford predecessor who just got benched in Houston. This is Stanford’s worst team in a long time; McKee is more a victim of that than the root cause, but he also doesn’t show the ability to make players around him better. In fact, in the games I watched the 23-year-old tried to do too much and didn’t have the arm talent or athletic ability to make it happen.
Even so, he’s likely to be drafted in the early part of Day 3 like Mills was in 2021. He’s not eligible for the Senior Bowl or Shrine Bowl, so this is his last game to show something to scouts.
Puka Nacua, WR, BYU
Nacua is another player who has accepted a Senior Bowl invite. The 2021 transfer from Washington is a physical style of an outside receiver at 6-2 and a strong 205 pounds. He fights through jams and holds as well as any receiver in college football, and he shows that same toughness after the catch and on a surprising amount of designed runs in the BYU offense.
Nacua projects right now in the sixth or seventh round, an area where the Lions could definitely look for a sure-handed receiver with size, toughness and legit blocking chops.
Michael Penix Jr., QB, Washington
Penix is a player who has surged in recent mock draft projections thanks to a very impressive season for the Huskies. The lefty transferred from Indiana and seemingly left a lot of the undesirable traits in Bloomington.
Always athletic and gutsy, Penix has dramatically scaled back the bad decisions and late reads in 2022. His completion percentage is over 10 points above where he was for the Hoosiers, too. Penix was darn near perfect in the win over Oregon. Doing the same in the Apple Cup would only help solidify his rising stock. It’s been a great season, but for those of us who watched him panic and struggle badly in the Big Ten, it’s awful hard to ignore the past too.
Daiyan Henley, LB, Washington State
Another player who thrived as a transfer, Henley began his college career as a wide receiver at Nevada. He moved to defensive back and eventually linebacker.
For someone with that little experience to play his way into being a Bednarik Award finalist says something about Henley’s grit and attitude. Henley made his sixth season of college football really count. The 6-2, 232-pound Henley has impressive coverage instincts and a very natural lack of wasted motion that serves him very well in coverage. His timing on rushes and at knifing around blocks is more advanced than you’d expect for a guy playing just his fourth year of defense in his life.
Henley is a Senior Bowl player who has played his way into consideration as high as the second round. The Lions were at his earlier game at Wisconsin, where he looked like the best player on the field for either team in just his third game for the Cougars. Definitely a name to know for Detroit fans.
