The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Klatt’s 10 “Plant the Flag” Players in the 2024 NFL Draft

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

With the draft only weeks away, Fox Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt reveals 10 NFL Draft prospects that he is “planting his flag” on as players he is betting on having impactful careers in the NFL. Klatt’s list of players range from players expected to go in the First Round like Washington QB Michael Penix Jr to players that may not be picked until the Second or Third day of the NFL Draft like Michigan Defensive Back Mikey Sainristil. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If this guy played at one of the Blue Bloods last year, we'd all be raving about him, raving about him. And trust me, scouts know about Jerzan Newton. College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher. Believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. It was an epic day of college football. It was one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. Hey, what's going on, everybody?

Welcome into the Joel Clatt show. I am Joel Clatt. and excited to be with you. Let's get right into it. If you are listening audio-wise, wherever you get your podcast, make sure to subscribe to the show, get all the content right away as soon as it comes out. If you're watching on YouTube, thank you, first of all, and make sure to subscribe to the channel. Leave a comment below.

I love to jump in there and leave comments down there with you. And if you're on social media, which you're on somewhere, one of the socials, you're on it. And guess what? We are there as well at Joel Clat Show. wherever you like to social media, got a lot of our content there as we start walking through the draft process. Remember, folks, I like to moonlight a bit during this time of year. So I will be on with the NFL network on night one and night two of the NFL draft,

live from Detroit with Rich Eisen, Daniel Jeremiah, and Charles Davis. And again, big thanks for DJ coming on last week. That was always great talking with him. And he is a wealth of information. and by the way, one of the best guys in the business. Don't tell him I said that. Let's dive into a fun topic that I want to get into today. And that is guys that I really just want to like plant my flag on, right?

Like this is, these are the players. And I've got some players that are a bit of no-brainers up towards the top of the draft. I've got a few players that are maybe fringe first rounders. And then I get into some second and third round guys. I've got 10 players here that we at Joel Clash, we just want to say like, hey, we know. these guys are going to be good pros. I don't know where they're going. I don't know what the fit is going to be, but similar to what we did last year with a category we like to call sleepers, but we didn't like sleepers. So this one is like, we're planting flags here. Okay. So these are guys,

and I've got 10 guys in this draft. Most of these guys I've covered in person, which is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about them and the success that I believe that they're going to have at the next level. But we're just going to plant some flags on guys and prospects. And this draft that we think are going to be excellent pros. And if you're a fan of any franchise, if you hear these names during this year's draft here at the end of whatever, April, you're going to be happy. You're going to be happy. So let's get started. I'm going to start with these guys that are likely top 15 picks. And by the way, I purposely didn't take consensus top 10 picks. I've covered Caleb Williams. It's obvious. I think he's going to be really good.

Drake May, same thing. I've covered Jaden Daniels. I've covered J.J. McCarthy. I think that those are consensus top pick, the top 10 picks. I stayed away from those types of guys, the Marvin Harrison Juniors. These are guys that aren't consensus right at the top of the draft. But three of them that I think most people would consider them top 15 picks or maybe 20 picks. Okay, so let me start with number one. My first plant the flag player is Brock Bowers, the tide in from Georgia. Now, if you listened and a lot of you did or watched the top five pass catchers episode of the Joel Klatt show, first, if you haven't, go back and check it out because I give a lot of thoughts about the tied in position in general and owning and operating in the middle of the field and what that does for an offense and more specifically a quarterback. I think that it makes life for a quarterback so much easier because of the matchups that you start to generate through first personnel groups. and then just specific individual matchups.

Now, Bowers has been elite since he stepped foot on campus in Athens. He has been elite since he was a true freshman three years ago. This guy, every time I got to watch him play, I was more impressed with his athleticism, his ability to catch the football. His, you know, by all accounts, his work ethic is off the charts. Last year, there was a lot of depth at the tied-in position in the draft. And so I suggested going into the draft that, hey, you could probably wait around and get a guy like Sam Leporta from Iowa. And guess what?

That rang true because that's what Detroit did. They got a guy that they could rely on. And then he was excellent in his rookie year for the Lions. This is a little bit different than that because Bowers is, I think, a better top end prospect than Sam Leporta, which means you got to go get him. He's more of a crown jewel than he is a guy that you can just wait in the wings and get him somewhere in the middle of the second round. That's obvious that can't happen with Brock Bowers because of his elite playmaking ability. He opens up the field. Like I said, what he can do for you from a personnel group standpoint, flexing out, creating matchup issues, and then just his athletic ability.

I continue to marvel at this play. I talked about it in the top five pass catchers episode. The play against Ohio State a couple of years ago and I believe that was, was it the Sugar Bowl, the Peach Bowl, regardless, it was the semifinal against Ohio State. And I believe it's fourth down and he's getting tackled along the boundary and reaches.

He makes an incredible athletic move and reaches for a first down. I don't think Georgia wins without that first down. You know, like at some point, your jimmies have got to be better than their Joe's. And guess what? is Jimmy. Rock Bowers is better than a lot of Joe's out there. He's just an elite player, and I believe that he's going to have a lot of success in the National Football League.

All right, number two. Also, a lot of people believe that it's going to be a top 15 pick. But here's a guy that I kind of planted a flag on, even before the college football season. If you've been listening since then, you will remember that before the college football season, I said Washington was my dark horse pick overall. And Michael Pinnock's, was a big reason why my Dark Horse Heisman candidate and a guy that I just thought a lot of even before the season. And then he went on to have what I can only categorize as an exceptional season in college football. And what he did leading Washington to the point that they're playing for a national championship against Michigan. What I love about Michael Pennix, though, is that there's nothing that I have to imagine with him, right?

there's no projection into the NFL because I got to see exactly what he's going to be required to do at the next level when he was at Washington. Control the game from the pocket. Pass the football. I didn't say throw. Pass the football down the field. And he did it with ease. This is a guy that controls the pocket from the – well, controls the game, I should say, from the pocket. I think better than any of the quarterbacks in this draft, maybe even better than K.

William's, and you know exactly how I feel about Caleb Williams. But his ability to sit there in a full field read and attack the deep zones, seams, and areas of the field with accuracy and leverage is uncanny. His timing is terrific. His ability to throw the ball with proper leverage so that he's increasing the odds of a catch for his man over the defender is exquisite. I love Michael Pinnock's. I was able to cover him when he was at Indiana.

I think the only reason that there's some questions about him, it might be his age, but it's more specifically his injuries. He was very injury prone until the last couple of years. But remember now, you've got to step away from that and take a more 30,000 foot view and think to yourself, okay, he has stood in the pocket two straight years on a team that was completely reliant on him throwing the football, and he's made every start in those two years and just let him to the national. championship game. Right? So at some point, you've got to say to yourself, he's over the injury

concerns. Love his game. Love his game. And as you know, I talk a lot about that leverage passing down the field. It's basically like he's counting cards. He's putting the odds in his wide receivers favor every time he throws it down the field. So that's another top 15 pick. And he is a Joel Clat show flagman. Bowers, Pinnock's, and now number three, another guy that's that I think probably goes in the top 15. And that's Olu Fashtonu, the offensive tackle from Penn State. Olu Fashnu was really good. And in some cases, dominant last year at tackle.

And he's just scratching the surface. That's my favorite part about him, is that he has still got so much room for growth. And yet he was fantastic last year. pass blocking, run blocking, his base, his athleticism. He is exactly what they're looking for. He's 6.6, 312 pounds. He's athletic.

The guy does everything well, and he's only going to get better. It's not going to shock me at all. If we look up in four or five years, and Olu Faschnu is the highest paid tackle in football, and he's one of the more dominant players in the National Football League at the line of scrimmage, that won't shock me at all. Again, he does everything well. It's very rare in the college game.

Normally, we've got guys that are very good run blockers or very good pass protectors. It's very rare when we have both. Then it's even more rare when that player who, I would say, at least, has both attributes, also has room to grow. You see, normally we think of potential as this untapped thing where you've got to grow and be taught in one area, a pass protection or run blocking, and yet he's good at both, still has room to go. Man, I tell you, hasn't played a ton of football in his life, and that's why he's got so much potential. So I love Olu Fascheneu. That is a guy that I just know deep down in my heart,

four or five years from now, we're going to be looking back and we're going to be like, that guy is an incredible pro. All right, so now after those top three, and those might be more obvious, but you know what, that's fine. Now we get into some guys that, like, could be first rounders, I think, projected more in that second half of the first round, and we'll see how it all plays out. This next one, though, I would say he falls through the cracks a little bit, in part because of where he played. And this is not a knock on Illinois. It's just that they didn't get a lot of love this last season. They did the season before that, if you remember, they made that run, almost won their division, almost beat Michigan at the end of the year. They had a bunch of draft

picks off of that defense. It was one of the best defenses in the country. Their coordinator, Ryan Walters left. He's the head coach at Purdue. Jurzan Newton has to stay, and that's my man at four, the defensive tackle for Illinois, Jerson Newton. Jerson Newton. Jerson Newton is a disruptive player in the middle of the field, and those don't come along often. He can rush the quarterback, be productive in the past game, and he's also excellent stopping the run. He's quick in the interior, which you don't always see. And I just think people don't quite recognize that because of where he played. If this guy played at one of the Blue Bloods last year, we'd all be raving about him,

raving about him. And trust me, scouts know about Jerzon Newton. His speed and athleticism in the interior remind me of a lot of, I would categorize him as a bit undersized disruptive players. I'm not going to compare him to Aaron Donald, but that's the mold. of a guy that can sit in the interior and do those types of things. It's very difficult to block him. Penn State could not block him the game I covered him.

And his teammates and coaches rave about him. When I would cover teams in the Big Ten, I always asked him about players around the conference. And almost every offensive coach would bring up, man, we couldn't block Dajon Newton. And I'm like, well, you know what? At some point you call a spade a spade of spade and you say, that guy is a football playing and Jesse. And that's exactly what Jerson Newton is. Everybody that I played college football with who listened to this is now going to throw something at their radio or computer or whatever, wherever they're listening to this because that's a term that our coaches used to use.

And we all roll our eyes, you know, and they're just like, oh, you know what? That's just a football playing Jesse. But it's correct. The guy just like put him in football pads and put him out there. And he's going to be really good. That's Jerson Newton. All right. Number five, another defensive tackle. I think he's probably going to be in the first round, but we'll see. I mean, the first round gets so nutty because you get runs on positions and then it's a lot of need. And then we could get trades back into that back end or half of the first round. But this is a guy that I really, really like.

Byron Murphy from Texas. Byron Murphy was in a lot of ways the reason why Texas was back where they were at. You know, everybody pays attention to the quarterback. So Quinn Ewers gets a lot of love. And obviously, like, Bijan got a lot of love last year. And then Jonathan Brooks this year, Xavier Worthy, this year, at 9-Mitchell this year. Sart gets a lot of, you know, yeah, they had some great players on offense.

But the reason Texas was back and more consistent was that they played more consistent football on the defensive side and more specifically at the line of scrimmage. And that's where Byron Murphy comes in. This guy was a man amongst boys. this year in college football, virtually unblockable. Washington couldn't block him, by the way. Pinnock just had an unbelievable game in that national semifinal. He was manipulating the pocket and getting away from the rush, but Tavondres Sweat and Byron Murphy, I mean, they were trying to beat Washington single-handedly. And again, in a lot of ways, we can talk about all those fancy

things that Texas has, and that's the reason why they got back to the playoff and are back on the upper echel line of college football. But really, in reality, it was Byron Murphy. It was Devandre Sweat. And it was their ability to play consistently at the line of scrimmage on defense. And Murphy is one of those guys. I see these coaches in the NFL. And in particular when we see the copycat nature of football,

both levels, by the way, college and the NFL. And a lot of people are going to be trying to copy what Baltimore does or what Michigan does. Guess what? defense. I've spent so much time around these coordinators of each of those units. And I can tell you, both with Mike McDonald, who's now the head coach in Seattle and Jesse Minter, who's now the defense coordinator for the Chargers and with the Ravens, they start with building a run wall. They want to establish depth and a wall on the interior of their defensive line with big, strong tackles. And that's exactly what Murphy is. And so in a copycat nature,

when more teams are going to be looking at that and trying to implement that strategy and philosophy, Murphy is a perfect pick. And if he gets picked late in the first round, I think it's a really good one. And I think he's going to be a really solid player in the National Football League. All right. We've got five more here. Guys that, again, we are planting flags on players in this draft that this show believes in,

that I believe in, that I think that they're just going to be really good pros. And now we get into those guys that I got one more that may sneak into the first round, but in all likelihood is probably going to be an early second round. round player. Wide receiver from Oregon, Troy Franklin. I really like Troy Franklin a lot. And he's getting, I don't know about lost, but it's easy, I think, to put other wide receivers ahead of him.

So you can make a quick top five list and not include Troy Franklin. You can, it's very easy to get to six or seven or eight at wide receiver. And then you're like, oh yeah, and Troy Franklin's pretty good. But the difference is that he's not just pretty good. He is an elite pass catcher on the outside. He's a great route runner. He's got fantastic hands, great worker, and he's athletic, and he can run and he can make contested catches. This wide receiver class is so deep.

And now all of a sudden, you're going to have an absolute gym sneak, and it might be early in the first round, or excuse me, second round. It might be late in the first round. But he is the type of guy that we're going to look up and we're going to be like, oh, man, you know, how come we didn't see this? Well, part of the problem is that there's a lot of good ones. Marvin Harrison, he's generational. You know, you got Brian Thomas and Keon Coleman and Malik neighbors, and you've got all these guys.

And it's easy to overlook Troy Franklin. We're not going to overlook him because Troy Franklin does what those guys want him to do. He gets open, he catches the football. He ran a 4-4-1 at 6-2. Like, come on now. There's a spot for this guy, and he's going to be really, really good. So Troy Franklin at number six. All right, so 7 and 8, these guys are, I would say, more second round probably.

But again, we'll see. I think it's easy to maybe even overvalue guys and give them a grade. But remember, like there's a select number of picks. won't be shocked if this guy's name is announced in the second round of the NFL draft. Running back from Texas, Jonathan Brooks, I really like Jonathan Brooks. Now, full disclosure, I've been able to cover Texas a few times over the last few years. And the first time I got to sit with Jonathan Brooks was actually this year when we went down and covered Texas. And Brooks is one of those guys that, I got to tell you, like his maturity when he sat in front of me, the way he talked about the team and his chance finally arriving.

Because remember, he sits behind Bejohn and Rocheon Johnson and didn't get many opportunities to catch the football, run the football, touch the football, impact the game. And yet he just waited and continued to prepare and continued to. to prepare, held the locker room together, and was a core guy for Steve Sarkeesian, a really a core guy, and then burst on the scene this year. And then we did that game against Kansas State. And, man, I was thoroughly impressed, not just in our meetings on Friday with him in person, but also his game. I'm sitting there and evaluating Jonathan Brooks prior to that game, and I'm thinking to myself, he does everything that the NFL wants him to do. He can slash in between the tackles. He can hit home runs outside of the tackles. He catches the football.

really well. Very smooth catcher of the football doesn't leave his feet. He can run routes. And I start thinking to myself, this works at the next level. This works at the next level, which makes him a guy that I want to plant my flag on. This is a player that I believe will have a lot of success in the National Football League. He might not be as dynamic as Bejan Robinson, which is why he won't go in the first round, or maybe even Jemir Gibbs. But he possesses similar qualities as those guys in that he can do everything that you require a running back to do from the backfield and he can be a threat catching the football. Christian McCaffrey has started this trend and you can even go back before that. You can go back to Marshall Falk or several guys that could really

catch it and be dangerous out of the backfield, your sproles, those types of players. But McCaffrey is the modern guy. Everyone looks at and it's like, okay, to be a great elite running back in this league, you really have to impact the game on both sides as a runner and a pass catcher. That's why Gibbs was so valuable. That's why Bijan was so valuable. And now I think that's why Jonathan Brooks is going to have a successful career and why it's a very easy

proclamation to sit here and say Jonathan Brooks is going to be a really good pro. All right, three more. I've got at, so my eighth guy, I think he could be a second rounder. He might be early third round. I'm not totally sure. But again, it's going to depend on

how fast a lot of these wide receivers go. And this wide receiver is from Michigan and didn't get a ton of opportunities, I would call it. But Roman Wilson from Michigan is a guy that nobody talks about, is quietly generating, I would say, a significant amount of buzz in the draft process via his performance at the Senior Bowl, his testing at the combine. It's going very well for him. And because of that, I think he may have gotten him.

himself into a second round pick. He's got really good hands, elite speed, elite speed. He ran 4-3-9 at the combine. Now, you could say like, well, he only had 48 catches this season. And I would say, yeah, well, 12 of them were touchdowns. Like, the guy knows how to, how to score. And then I would also say, he was, and I struggled to use this word, but he was a, I don't want to say victim, but he was, but he was, a product is the better work. I'm going to say he was a product of the Michigan system. And I don't mean that in a negative way. It's not like they were just three yards in a cloud of dust because they did things and threw the ball to him in special ways and designed things for him. You know, the Nebraska game was great for him. If you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing some of those highlights right now. The catch he made against Ohio State was next level for a touchdown.

They schemed for him against Purdue because Purdue is a mainly man coverage team. So they used his elite speed to run crossing routes and in particular deep over routes and got him isolated one-on-one and then had big plays because of that. Roman's a really good player and no one knows it because Michigan had a very specific philosophy of how they were going to win. J.J. McCarty is in this boat as well. he is a product of the Michigan way. Okay.

And again, it's not a bad thing because that's how they won a national championship. But they checked their ego at the door. J.J. McCarthy and Roman Wilson could have sat there and said, hey, we're elite players. Roman Wilson could have easily been a 85, 90 catch guy for a thousand plus yards and 15 to 20 touchdowns in any other program in the country. He's that good. Trust me.

That's why I believe in him as what I would say, an undervalued prospect in this process. Roman Wilson is a guy that I would plan a flag on. I think he's going to be really good. And again, was around that team a lot, which is why my ninth guy is another Michigan player. Mike Sainer Still. I don't know where Mike Sainer still is going to get drafted. In my mind, I'm like late second round, early third. But I have no idea where he's going to get drafted.

because there's a lot of unknowns based on his size and so on and so forth, all these measurables. Here's what I do not have a question about with Mike Sain Ristill. His ability to impact a football game at defensive back, he's the best nickelback in the country, and he's only played defense for two years. So similar to what I was talking about earlier in this podcast with Olu Fashtonu, the tackle from Penn State, in terms of this upside that he has and the potential that he has and this idea that he's going to continue to improve, I hold that the same way with Mike

Sain Ristil as I do with Olu Fascheneu. Mikey Sain Ristill was one of my favorite players to cover over the last couple of years. First and foremost, you talk about a team player. He switched positions a couple of years ago. He was a wide receiver and he moves to Nickelback. And he's like started right away. And he had no idea what he was doing. And he goes out there and he just starts making plays.

And by the end of his career, so at the end of his second year at defensive back, he was the defender on the best defense in the country that every other offensive coordinator would talk about. We got to know where Mike Sainer still is. The guy just makes plays. He's a matchup issue for us. And it's like, well, why?

It's like because he can do everything. He's a Swiss Army knife back there. And in that way, he was a bit of an amoeba in their defense. He played nickel, but he was up near the line of scrimmage. Then all of a sudden, he would be back at safety. He was exceptional. Jim Harbaugh raves about him. Again, selfless player.

And he possesses all of these innate instincts that you just can't teach. And that's the only way you can have the amount of success that he did on the defensive side, having only played two years of defensive football. I think Mikey Sain Ristill, gosh, I hesitated. When I was preparing for this, I was just like, am I going to say this? I'm going to say this. I don't want to do it, and I did it earlier already with Jersan Newton. Mikey Sain Ristill reminds me, this is not a direct comparison.

But in terms of their ability to play freely and roam and be a new service. for the offense, he reminds me he's in the same vein as, although not a direct comparison as like an Ed Reed or a Honeybadger. Like these guys that just, you know, they're always around the ball. They have this innate ability to not just play the structure of the defense, but to impact the play out of that structure. And Stainer still has that. And that's why I'm really confident, like, this guy is not only going to stick.

He's going to be able to contribute on special teams right away. He's going to be able to get on the field. And I guarantee you, Mikey Stainer still is on the field making place next year as a rookie. So he's another one. I'm planning a flag on Mikey Stenry still. And then my last guy and a guy that I covered a couple of times during his career, but mostly early this last season in his first game of this last year. Safety from Minnesota, Tyler Newman.

Tyler's a really good player. And again, you know, second third, maybe, maybe late third. But he's got really solid instincts and ball skills. His coaching staff raved about his leadership, his work ethic, his commitment, all of those things, which lets you know that he's going to be able to walk into a pro locker room and he won't be overwhelmed. He had 12 interceptions over the last three years. He had five this last season.

And he had two in the game that I did against Nebraska, although Nebraska was basically passing the football, the equivalent of punts. That was a little harsh, but you know what, whatever. Nubin is a guy that I think is a prototypical middle of the field player. He can play down low if you need him to, but he's better from the middle just because of his instincts. He's got good size.

He probably needs to run a touch better, but he's physical enough to go in the NFL game and really excel right away. So Tyler Nubin is a guy. And there's a couple of players that, although not direct comparisons, but he kind of reminds me of in terms of these guys that might not be elite first-round-style players. But I just know, based on their football IQ, their instincts, their ability to impact games, I just have a deep feeling like he's going to succeed. I had that same feeling with Jeyer Brown from Penn State, Tig Brown.

I had that same feeling with Jordan Fuller out of Ohio State. And guess what? They got on the field right away and impacted games right away. And that's how I feel about Tyler Nuban. So there you go. Those are my 10 guys that I would like to plant a flag on here in this draft process and just say, like, I believe in these players to be successful. Brock Bowers, Michael Pinnock's, Olu Fascheneu, Jersan Newton, the defensive tackle from Illinois.

Byron Murphy, the defensive tackle from Texas. Troy Franklin, wide receiver from Oregon. Jonathan Brooks, running back from Texas. Roman Wilson, receiver from Michigan. Mikey Sain Ristill, the nickelback from Michigan, and Tyler Nubin, the safety from Minnesota. That'll do it for this episode. Continue to follow us on social.

Continue to throw us emails, by the way. The Joel Clashow email, or excuse me, the Joel Clat Show, yeah, the Joel Clat Show mailbag at gmail.com. I almost screwed that up, but then I didn't. And then just make sure to subscribe and follow wherever you're at. And we will continue to march on as we get closer and closer to the 2024 NFL draft.

Thanks for listening to everybody.