The next Puka Nacua? Another Keaton Mitchell? | Sleeper & Small School Draft Prospect Comparisons

we're actually going to do some comparisons uh which is good to do here because I think a lot of the times people will be listening they haven't heard of maybe some of the small school prospects or the sleeper prospects that we're mentioning so we decided hey let's compare it to a guy who's currently an NFL right now and that gives you a better idea of what this guy's skill set is and what he might be able to do at the next level uh so emry we're going to start with you on this looks like uh give me what you got well and comparisons are because it helps people kind of figure out what kind of player the guy is right and everyone wants to compare everyone to greats and because that's easy to identify but when you compare them to people that guys see every day it makes a little bit more reasonable realistic and sense so if you like Brandon strange the tit end out of Penn State that's with Jacksonville you'll like Owen glasow out of Long Island now here's the thing he also was at Penn State before before he transferred to Liu so there's some lineage there but this dude is super athletic and is always around the football and is always able to do things differently with the football he started the game against Stonehill at quarterback so he's played quarterback in terms of like quarterback power and Zone Reed but technically he started the game as a quarterback against Stonehill had a 12 yard QB power inside the Red Zone he's been a monster there both as a receiver and also as a wildcat quarterback so you expand your playbook if I'm you know the NFL I don't let Andy Reid get his hands on him I don't let Shawn Payton get his hands on him because he's gonna be a versatile weapon for that offense he can play HB back he can play tight end he can win Above the Rim had a great College GD iron showcase where he would just you know baking these defensive backs and linebackers in one on ons and inside the Red Zone has nine rushing touchdowns so this is someone if you like the athleticism and the movement skills of Brandon strange you love the kid coming out of liou I I love uh you telling NFL teams not to let shine pton get his hands on him because there's nothing we know that Shawn pton loves more than a versatile tight end of course Tamm Hill down in New Orleans I'm sure Payton's on the phone with someone trying to make a trade for him right now yeah it it would be great to see someone from Long Island again this is just every is great at finding these obscure schools uh who could end up producing uh a solid NFL players for Brandon strange second round pick with Jacksonville uh last season in 2023 all right Josh let's get to your first comparison yeah and first of all we're starting to notice a little bit of a trend with former Penn State tight ends going on to different institutions and then carving their own path to the NFL we saw Zack c um out of Old Dominion was it last year or two years ago um tested off the charts one of was one of the best athletic testers at the tight end position um so obviously Penn State's turning out athletes at not just the safety and Edge rusher positions that we commonly talk about with them but also tight end um mine is Cole Burgess a wide receiver out of Sunni courland um and he to to me he's he's like a like a discount Jackson Smith and jiga somebody that's very Savvy rout Runner just knows how to get in and out of his releases great feel for the sideline somebody that has really great awareness for uh spatial you know awareness in in coverage in zone coverage so he knows how to attack Zone defenses um I think he's going to be able to carve out a roll at the next level and he tested really well um this off season as well he showed up at Buffalo's prod day he showed up at Syracuse's pro day so uh this is a guy that has set out to make a name for himself but 5 foot1 196 pounds 446 in the 40 yard dash 143 10 yard split so you see that topend speed you see the acceleration a little bit 41 and a half inch vertical jump uh and an 11 foot5 inch broad jump so would have been one of the better testers at the wide receiver position had he been invited to the NFL combine uh but nonetheless I think a name that fans really need to pay attention to is somebody that could get in there on day three and that is uh Sun courtland's D3 aren't they that that would be pretty wild to get a D3 player up in there drafted as a former backup punter at a division three College shout out Handover uh always love when a D3 guy gets drafted uh um all right let's go back to emry who you got for us emry well this is kind of you know help is is a situation where a player that had success that helps out the next guy right it's almost like when Randy Moss burst onto the scene in the NFL everyone went out and tried to find a 65 slim guy that play a receiver and compared him to Randy Moss right oh and Vic went off oh let's go find an athletic quarterback and call him the next Vic and just let him play quarterback right well last year Keat Mitchell's emergence is showing everybody that hey size is not a skill which I've been on the record of saying that you know for a decade plus so now they're looking that okay this guy can impact the game with his speed man we can use a guy like Keat Mitchell well lo and behold there's a bunch of Keat Mitchells in this class but the guy I think that really will benefit from Keaton Mitchell was at the combine was at the East West R bowl and I was on the broadcast for 11 of his games over the last three seasons and that's Jaden Shir out of Mama every time I called the game it was like this dude's going to go 80 and legitimately you were leaving a game with at least a 65 plus yard touchdown run because all he needs is a sliver of space and he's gone and he was to in the Rock there Mammoth he was carrying the ball 25 times right they barely threw it to him so that's where he's gonna have to grow his game as a as a pro as a receiver but as a runner give this dude a lane and he's 88 out the gate and it's fascinating because he ran 44 which is fast super fast but he plays faster now the reason why I brought up Keat Mitchell is because Sher measured in at 57 190 people will say oh he's small he's gonna you know they're gonna hurt him like you can't hit what you can't catch you can't hurt what you can't touch and when you got that type of ability that's the type of guy that you want he won't have to touch the ball 25 times in the NFL it won't take that much for him to make the impact so that's the guy that you want to get if you're looking at a Keaton Mitchell type uh uh prototype yeah and I do think that a good point about bringing up his height is sometimes teams will be afraid of that and somebody like that will fall in the draft because they're thinking I don't want to draft a guy who's 5' seven or 5'8 or 5'9 especially a running back who's going to be taking all these hits but as Emory said you can dance around and the way you move and you're kind of the the lightning type running back you're not going to take a bunch of huge hits uh and we saw Keat Mitchell obviously have a pretty solid season last year we've seen small guys Thrive I mean we saw the the Cowboys uh with du Fawn uh Darren Scrolls put together a pretty solid NFL career he was only five six so uh yeah these short guys and as a short guy uh I love seeing other short guys succeed uh Josh you are taller than me why don't you give us your next comparison so my next comparison um is at Albany um Albany has produced some good pass rushers recently Jared verse made the transition to Florida State now is projected to be a first round pick but do not sleep on AJ Simon from Albany either because he's a very talented pass rusher I compared him to kind of a Carl Lawson in the way that is used um you know he's powerful he does a good job of setting the edge he's got good quickness uh didn't test as well as I thought he would but what you need to see is what you can see when you watch his tape because he is fantastic he gets off the ball he gets up field um and he's threatening the pass the passer all day um what I like about this part of the process is as we get closer to the draft you know some of the people in the NFL they start reaching out to you they you know they're saying hey you know maybe this guy is somebody you should take a look at here before we get the draft day and Simon was one of those players uh because he gets off the ball so well and I think he's going to be able to carve out a roll for himself at the next level um let's see he's got good waist bin at the high side of his rush so he's able to flatten get after the quarterback you really see everything that you need to see as far as a player that um you know can provide some pass rush specific traits while still developing into some other areas of his game so I think this is a guy that's going to potentially go higher on day three than the first guy I talked about Cole Burgess um and really find himself a roster spot for the coming season let me ask you this Josh is there any specific team you feel like where you think man if he lands there that's the perfect spot maybe it's playing behind someone for a year uh maybe just getting in a good rotation with experienced players any team you would like to see him land on I think the Jets could be a a good fit for him I mean you look at what they did with Bryce Huff now you've got Hassan reck coming over reck is getting a little bit older Philadelphia made the decision to move on from him so there's no reason to think that New York may not do the same I don't know how they feel about Will McDonald I fourth um so that could be an opportunity for him to F fill out some depth there uh Detroit had I think a similar saw off type pass rusher with James Houston um who was able to you know make a a nice living for himself as a rookie and fill a role for that team so there's going to be some teams around the league that have an interest for that type of player that's um not necessarily going to play every down for you initially but somebody that can be in there on pass rushing downs and get after the quarterback and emry I should have asked you that with Jaden Sheran uh since we love the small guys any landing spot you would love to see him go to Houston uh you know I think Houston would be perfect you know what I'm saying when you thinking about uh what they had in Devin single ter now he's gone and now you got Mixon you got Damen Pierce as a kickoff guy but you need someone that could be that explosive change of pace back that comes in when everyone's tired and he still you know at 98% battery life right and he can still explode and I will just say about the U Albany uh rusher Simon his teammate Anton uh KJ just into the transfer portal he was as good as Simon was he's going to go to FBS program because go and watch the Morgan State game which I was the color analyst on in a torrential downpour those two dudes wrecked havoc on Morgan State's pocket um and they are Albany you Albany has a fantastic program up there that quarterback just transferred down south as well uh you know poffenberger um you know I think he's I forgot what school in Florida he's going to but they were really good last year uh it's it's crazy when you talk about one smaller school just keep I mean they have to be able to recruit like crazy they just keep bringing in these skilled kids and really finding these guys under rocks because you know FBS schools aren't finding them and then these schools turn into Proving Grounds and send these guys up to FBS schools uh all right emry you got one more comparison here yeah and this wasc obviously we've been in TV we know throughout the production meetings no one has ever said to one of us hey do this for right so this may be the first time I'm doing something for clicks just to draw people to the attention of the player that I'm talking about and he kind of plays like the guy anyway but if you like puka nura that's G to go viral then you'll love Kyle sheets of Slippery Rock sheets is about 63 right on the nose um 222 pounds ran high 44 low 45 at the temple pro day and this is someone that is a legit vertical threat he is able to win off the line of scrimmage he is able to stack the defensive back which means he doesn't lose position in terms of staying in front of him thus creating separation while he's tracking the ball which he does exceptionally well and he's able to catch the football over the over his shoulders equally as impressive as he is uh through contact at the college grown showcase he had a fantastic week of work against FBS Corners so you saw that division two jump up from the pack translated out there on the field now here's the other thing too he had just came off of an injury this is probably about week four or five um and I just casually this was after I called the game so I casually tuned in to a slippy Rod game because I had heard of K sheets all throughout the summer right and I I had tweeted out about him watched some film or whatnot but let me just check in see what he's doing this was his first game back and the first time they got the ball on offense they took a deep shot to Kyle Sheet's touchdown like he just quickly beat the DB off the line of scrimmage and was gone so you factoring someone that's 62 63 about 222 can play inside or outside it doesn't take you long to see like this dude can have some success kind of like a Ben scanic I know scanic is sort of the tight end as opposed to what he was at Notre Dame but you see what I'm saying when you think about pukan Nur you think about scaran you think about all these guys that kind of fit what the Rams do if you told me K was going to the Rams I said yeah that make a ton of sense because he kind of fits what they look for at the position could also see him going to Pittsburgh too yeah sha McVey probably are in the phone with uh Sheet's agent saying hey look man if you don't get drafted we'll give you whatever you want in the undrafted round uh and but he won't go undrafted it sounds like I think he had 17 touchdowns looking at his stats earlier I mean he really had a solid year had four or five maybe six games over a hundred yards it it was one of the I just saw that he went to Slippery rocket that's one of those schools I feel like everyone's heard of but they don't know what level it is it's division two and then they don't know where it is it's in Pennsylvania um but yeah Kyle sheet seems like he could end up being uh just a diamond in the rough in this draft all right Josh you have one more you have one more comparison here or I I've got one more and Kyle sheets is a name that I've heard a few places too so that's a really good one I actually haven't watched him yet so I'm over here taking notes as Em's talking uh doing a little bit of homework for myself but the last name that I have is Alex gner the defensive tackle from Montana uh and if you love Malcolm roach the longtime NFL defensive tackle uh you'll love gner um a guy that's 6'2 and a half 294 pounds um does a lot of slanting for the Grizzlies but he gets upfield quickly pad level gets a little bit too high sometimes but when you see what he did at his pro day um here in the past month he ran a 482 in the 40- yard dash 1.68 10 yard split so he's getting upfield quickly uh impacting the Back Field somebody that made a lot of plays for that Grizz uh what's really interesting this is an anecdote I've shared in multiple places I don't think it necessarily applies to his NFL future but it's worth saying nonetheless um as a freshman in 2019 he had four interceptions yeah he he's a freshman defensive tackle he was second in the Big Sky with four interceptions so uh don't necessarily know that that translates to the NFL other than knowing if the ball is up in the air he's he's somebody that's you know a threat to go get it um but one of the more interesting anecdotes that I've uncovered throughout this draft draft process thus far yeah and Montana is a good school I mean obv they were the national title game and the FCS this year I think they lost to South Dakota state so you play solid competition we've seen some good players come out of the FCS level