NFL Draft sleepers and spring football takeaways: A Saturday Blitz Podcast

With spring football wrapping up around most of the country, what were some of the more interesting storylines? Who are the NFL Draft’s biggest sleepers?

Spring football reached its conclusion around most of the country, and Zach and I return for the sixth episode of the Saturday Blitz Podcast to discuss the most intriguing topics around the college football world before the dog days of summer set in.

The most intriguing storyline to follow through the college football offseason has been the mass exodus of transfer quarterbacks. From Oklahoma to Ohio State to Miami to various others, many teams will be turning to a transfer quarterback to turn their offense in 2019. Which signal-callers have stood out, for better and worse?

We also haven’t seen the last of quarterbacks, or other significant players, on the move. A lot of times the conclusion of spring practice brings another wave to the transfer portal as players see the writing on the wall and know working their way up a crowded depth chart might be tough.

Penn State’s Tommy Stevens and Ohio State’s Matthew Baldwin recently made their intentions known. Stevens’s decision was strictly for football as he looks to take advantage of his one final season of eligibility to show something to NFL scouts. Baldwin, on the other hand, may have thought beating out Fields was going to be a tough task, but also genuinely seemed to want to get back closer to his home state of Texas. Baldwin’s transfer is another important reminder that athletes transfer all the time without it having anything to do with the sport they play.

Zach and I also discuss spring football from a fan’s perspective. I always maintain that you have to be careful with any high-brow narratives you pull from just the spring game, or all the practices as a whole, because teams will undoubtedly look a lot different between now and when the season kicks off in August. Several schools are still waiting on high-profile recruits they are counting on to contribute as freshmen, and as mentioned before we haven’t seen the last of the wave of transfers.

But for all the sloppy football we typically see during the spring, it can also allow fans who typically do not have the means to see a live college football game in person the opportunity to walk the hallowed grounds of their beloved team’s stadium. Most schools do not charge for access to the game, and even those that do charge very little. It might not be real football, but it’s real enough for those experiencing a game for the first time in the stadium they have long revered.

Bereft of a soul-bearing topic this week, Zach and I took a look at the upcoming NFL Draft that gets started on Thursday night. One of my favorite things to prognosticate about in regards to the draft is examining the college football stars who are being undervalued in the pre-draft process. The guys all college football fans know are legitimate players, and yet somehow the NFL is  overlooking them for perceived slights in athletic ability or a lack of size.

I call it the Russell Wilson All-Stars. Wilson was an outstanding college football player at both NC State and Wisconsin before making the leap to the NFL. He fell to the third round because of concerns over his height. He immediately won the starting job in Seattle, ultimately leading the Seahawks to a Super Bowl victory in 2014. Wilson recently signed a monster four-year. $140-million extension with Seattle.

Which college football players are being undervalued in this draft process? We also took a brief look at which are being overvalued – the players who college football fans have seen little out of and yet are being hyped as can’t miss prospects. Call it the Todd Marinovich All-Stars or the Christian Ponder All-Stars – those players exist every year too.

The Saturday Blitz Podcast is part of the FanSided Radio Network at Spreaker. The show goes live every Wednesday morning. You can reach John Mitchell @jlmitchell93 and Zach Bigalke @zbigalke on Twitter.