One of the oldest lessons in scouting is that the first month of a season rarely changes everything. Most of the time, the players who look great in September are the same players who looked great in the spring, and the players who struggle are the ones with the same flaws you already knew about. But every once in a while, a handful of prospects come along and make you tear up your notes completely. That’s exactly what’s happening with the ten players on this list as the 2026 college football season heats up and scouts begin shaping their boards for the 2027 NFL Draft. These are the guys who have either answered the biggest questions about their game or who have stumbled so clearly out of the gate that you can’t ignore it. Some have made themselves into early-round possibilities with a few electric weeks. Others have watched their once-promising stock take a real hit. The season is still long, and April is still far away, but right now these are the storylines that scouts are talking about in meeting rooms, in the stands, and on the road between campuses.
Start with the risers, and no one has come from further out of nowhere than Oklahoma State quarterback Drew Mestemaker. The redshirt sophomore is the kind of player scouts love to dream on because he has the physical tools you simply cannot teach: prototypical size, real athleticism, a strong arm, and surprising accuracy. The only thing he lacked was experience, and for years that made him an intriguing mystery more than a serious prospect. That changed in a hurry when he upset Oregon in mid-September, then followed it up with a road win over West Virginia. In those games, he didn’t just manage the offense; he made throws that made people in the press box look at each other and say, “Did you see that?” He’s still raw, and the sample size is small, but he’s no longer just a curiosity. He’s become a legitimate early-round candidate, and scouts are going to be watching every snap he takes from here on out. The other first-month riser on offense is Oregon right guard Dave Luli. With all the flashy skill players and the dominant defensive front in Eugene, it would be easy to overlook a big, physical offensive lineman in the trenches. But Luli refuses to be ignored. At 6-foot-3 and 332 pounds, he is an absolute load at the point of attack, and his first punch is so violent that it brings to mind a heavyweight champion unloading on an opponent. What makes him more than just a brawler, though, is the way he moves. He’s quick off the snap, fluid enough to mirror pass rushers, and powerful enough to blow defenders off the ball in the run game. Guards rarely command first-round attention, but Luli looks like the kind of player who could step into an NFL lineup early and start for a decade.
The next riser is USC offensive tackle Elijah Paige, a player who might not get much attention from casual fans but has been on scouts’ radars for a while. At 6-foot-7 and 315 pounds, Paige has the massive frame you want in a blindside protector, and unlike many of the other top tackles in this draft class, he has the arm length and the lateral agility to stay at left tackle at the next level. He’s started 24 games at that spot for the Trojans, and through the first four games of this season he has been nearly flawless, allowing just two pressures and no sacks while keeping star quarterback Jayden Maiava comfortable in the pocket. That kind of steady, reliable play is exactly what NFL teams are looking for when they start evaluating offensive linemen. On the defensive side of the ball, UCLA linebacker Sammy Omosigho has become one of the breakout stars of the early season. After three years at Oklahoma where he struggled to crack the starting lineup, Omosigho transferred to UCLA in January, and the change of scenery has completely unlocked his potential. The Bruins are 4-0, and Omosigho is leading the country with four forced fumbles, including a perfectly timed punchout against Purdue that showed off his closing speed and instincts. He’s an explosive athlete who delivers bone-rattling hits, but he’s also impressing scouts with his pre-snap communication and ability to diagnose plays before they develop. Then there’s South Carolina’s Vicari Swain, who was already known as one of the most dangerous returners in college football. He had three punt return touchdowns a year ago and earned third-team All-SEC honors, but he’s somehow managed to top that this season with two more punt return scores, breaking a school record that had stood for 55 years. What makes Swain even more valuable now is the improvement he’s shown on defense, where his coverage recognition and willingness to tackle have turned him from a specialist into a more complete cornerback prospect.
Of course, not every player in this group is trending in the right direction. South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers is perhaps the most frustrating prospect in the country because he has all the physical gifts and intangibles you could ever want in a franchise quarterback, but he keeps making the same kind of costly mistakes. The Alabama game was a nightmare, a 49-18 loss in which Sellers made several critical errors, including a disastrous pick-six where he completely failed to account for an underneath defender. That kind of play is especially concerning because it happened in his 28th career start. At some point, experience has to start translating into consistent decision-making, and so far it hasn’t. In fact, his touchdown-to-interception ratio has worsened every year of his career, going from 18-to-7 in 2024 to 13-to-8 in 2025 and now 6-to-4 this season. His film is full of throws that make you believe he could be an All-Pro one day, but it’s also filled with the kind of lowlights that make you wonder if he’ll ever be reliable enough to lead an NFL offense. Louisville running back Isaac Brown is another faller who looked destined for stardom after rushing for 18 touchdowns and an incredible 7.73 yards per carry over his first two seasons. But this year, the sledding has been much tougher, with his yards-per-carry dropping all the way to 4.1. Brown added weight during the offseason, jumping from 186 to 198 pounds, hoping to prove he could handle the workload of a true bell-cow back. That decision makes sense in theory, but in practice it seems to have cost him some of the explosive burst that made him so dangerous in the first place. He can still create big plays, but he’s not doing it consistently, and scouts are starting to wonder whether the new version of Brown is actually an improvement or just a slightly less electric version of what he used to be.
The same kind of concern is following Florida State offensive tackle Xavier Chaplin around this season. Chaplin looked like a future first-round pick when he earned All-American honors as a redshirt freshman at Virginia Tech back in 2023, but he has looked nothing like that against the better competition on Florida State’s schedule. In a game against Alabama two weeks ago, he surrendered multiple pressures and looked heavy-footed and off-balance, especially against speed rushers and counter moves. At 6-foot-8 and 346 pounds, Chaplin has the kind of mass that NFL teams love, but if he can’t move well enough to stay in front of quick edge rushers, that size doesn’t matter nearly as much. The schedule isn’t going to do him any favors, either, with tough road games at Louisville and Miami and a home date against Clemson and defensive end Will Heldt on Halloween night. If Chaplin doesn’t shore up his technique in a hurry, his slide could continue. Michigan cornerback Jyaire Hill is another player who has taken a step backward. Hill entered the season as one of the more exciting young corners in the country, but he had a brutal game against Iowa, missing tackles and allowing four receptions, all of which went for either a first down or a touchdown. NFL teams are always looking for tall, athletic corners, but they also need guys who can flip their hips and change direction without wasting a step. Hill has been guessing too often, leaving receivers open on critical downs, and while he wasn’t the one who gave up the game-winning touchdown in the final seconds, he was badly beaten earlier in the game by the same receiver, Reece Vander Zee, for a score. LSU safety Ty Benefield has also seen his stock dip after a rough performance in the Tigers’ emotional loss to Ole Miss. At 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, Benefield is an impressive athlete with real speed and physicality, and he’s the kind of player who can strike fear into receivers crossing the middle. But the position is called safety for a reason, and Benefield has been taking poor angles and lunging at ballcarriers instead of wrapping up properly. Scouts want to believe he can become a top-100 pick, especially after he transferred from Boise State to the SEC, but he’s going to have to show much better fundamentals if he wants to live up to that potential.
The beautiful thing about all of this is that the season is only a few weeks old, and nobody has to be defined by one good or bad month. The risers on this list now face the harder challenge of staying consistent when opponents start game-planning around them and when the spotlight gets brighter. The fallers have plenty of time to fix what’s wrong, but only if they are willing to be honest with themselves about the issues they see on tape. For Drew Mestemaker, the next few games will show whether the early magic is real. For LaNorris Sellers, the question is whether he can stop giving the ball away. For Isaac Brown, it’s about finding a way to regain that explosive burst while still carrying the extra weight. For Xavier Chaplin, it’s about rediscovering his footwork before the schedule gets even tougher. For Jyaire Hill and Ty Benefield, it’s about getting back to the fundamentals of their positions. The NFL draft is not decided in September, but September does tell us who is trending in the right direction and who is going to need to answer some difficult questions before April. These ten players have made the 2027 draft class a lot more compelling, and their journeys over the rest of the season will be one of the most interesting storylines in college football. Whether they end up as first-round picks or undrafted free agents depends less on what they’ve already done and more on how they respond to the pressure that’s coming next. For scouts, for fans, and for the players themselves, that’s what makes this sport so thrilling.
