NFL Draft: Many 4th-year seniors are expected to return to college

The Athletic’s Dane Brugler has reported that NFL scouts “are preparing” for a high number of fourth-year seniors to return to college football in 2027, which will impact the 2027 NFL Draft. This is part of the inevitable evolution of the college landscape, as the NCAA decided to allow for “five-for-five” this past offseason.

Five-for-five plays out exactly how you think. College players have five years of service available to them before they’ve exhausted their NCAA eligibility, no matter whether they took a redshirt year or not. What this means is that true seniors, players who got on the field for four years without burning a redshirt, are no longer getting pushed out of the NCAA, but actually have another year of eligibility.

I first got wind of this upcoming trend in October, so I decided to look at the upcoming class and how it would impact it. My finding: It could impact it a lot.

Out of the top 40 prospects on the consensus board (checked on October 12th, when I last dug into the data), only one player (Mississippi quarterback Trinidad Chambliss) was a fifth-year player. In essence, every non-Chambliss in that portion of the draft will be treated like an underclassman in previous classes and would have to declare for the draft, passing up available college eligibility, to be entered in 2027.

Some notable players who are considered to be “seniors,” but still have eligibility in college next season, if they want it, are:

• Minnesota iOL Greg Johnson
• Oregon iDL A’Mauri Washington
• Clemson ED Will Heldt
• Missouri OL Cayden Green
• Oregon ED Matayo Uiagalelei
• Kentucky OL Lance Heard
• Missouri ED Damon Wilson Jr.
• Arkansas ED Quincy Rhodes Jr.
• LSU ED Pincewill Umanmielen
• LSU S Ty Benefield
• Oregon OL Iapani Laloulu
• Florida State WR Duce Robinson
• Miami RB Mark Fletcher
• Alabama S Bray Hubbard
• BYU RB LJ Martin
• Oregon ED Teitum Tuioti
• LSU LB Whit Weeks
• South Carolina WR Nyck Harbor
• Indiana CB A.J. Harris

Out of the top-100 prospects in this class (again, going off the 10/12 consensus board), only 17 are fifth-year seniors. These are the top three-round players who are for sure going to be in the 2027 class:

• #9: Trinidad Chambliss, QB, Mississippi
• #41: Carter Smith, OL, Indiana
• #44: Ahmad Moten Sr., iDL, Miami
• #47: Kenyatta Jackson, ED, Ohio State
• #51: Devan Thompkins, iDL, Alabama
• #54: Jayden Maiava, QB, USC
• #60: Omarion Miller, WR, Arizona State
• #67: Clev Lubin, ED, Louisville
• #74: Bear Alexander, iDL, Oregon
• #76: DJ McKinney, CB, Notre Dame
• #78: Jacarrius Peak, OL, South Carolina
• #80: Emmanuel Oyebadejo, iDL, Florida
• #85: Zereoue Williams, OL, Utah
• #88: A.J. Holmes Jr., iDL, Texas Tech
• #94: PJ Williams, OL, SMU
• #98: Ben Roberts, LB, Texas Tech
• #100: Jamari Sharpe, CB, Indiana

That’s it. The other 83 prospects in the top-100 are either fourth-year seniors (now eligible to return to the NCAA for another year under five-for-five) or underclassmen (who have always had extra eligibility).

Keep an eye on declarations this year, because they will decide the strength of the upcoming class. If a lot of players go back, as expected, the 2028 class will be much stronger than 2027, due to the talent bottleneck. The 2028 class might be the strongest class since 2011, when the NFL instituted a rookie salary scale — which disincentivized players returning to school. With $40 million college rosters, the prospect of declaring for the NFL draft, when the top third-round pick (Carson Beck) made $2.7 million this year, is a lot less urgent.