Virginia Football: Bryce Perkins improves NFL draft stock in Orange Bowl

Virginia football’s Bryce Perkins had one of his best games of the season in the Orange Bowl which should improve his NFL draft stock.

Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Jake Fromm, Jacob Eason. Those were the names that have been mentioned among the best quarterbacks available for the 2020 NFL Draft but one name that hasn’t been getting enough respect is Bryce Perkins.

After a solid performance against a tough Florida defense in the Orange Bowl, that may change.

On a night when his run game didn’t give him much assistance — seven carries for 28 yards outside of his own production on the ground — Perkins had himself quite the performance, completing 28-of-40 passes for 323 yards and four touchdowns. He did have an interception, but his steady play more than made up for that one mistake. He also led the team in rushing with 24 yards.

It wasn’t the best game of his career, but it was one that he won’t soon forget because it may have just improved his draft stock.

Draft scouts haven’t shown him a ton of love maybe because he’s only had two years of a sample size at the FBS level or because he threw 12 interceptions this season, but he completes about 64 percent of his passes, can run the ball when needed, he has decent size at 6-3 and 215 pounds and has 47 touchdown passes over the past two seasons while leading Virginia to college football relevance.

On top of that, he had a career-best 3,538 yards this season, putting him over 6,000 for his two-year Virginia career. The dude can flat-out sling it, smashing any belief that he’s one-dimensional.

If NFL teams were waiting until Monday night’s Orange Bowl performance to make a decision on Perkins, I think he answered the call. This kid is more than worth a Day 3 pick and he may have even played himself into the late-Day 2 discussion.