The Sunday Slate

Six weeks down, six to go, and the 2027 draft class looks nothing like it did in August, except at the very top.

Jeremiah Smith has been in the Stock Rising column of our weekly recaps for five weeks running and rewrote the Ohio State record books in the process. Arch Manning went from the headline of the class to a likely return to school candidate. Darian Mensah never once left our good side. Drew Mestemaker went from a Week 1 dud at Tulsa to Dane Brugler’s QB1 in Week 6. And a nasty group of defenders, led by Clev Lubin, Colin Simmons and Chris Cole, built first-round cases for themselves in the first half.

We went back through all six of our weekly recaps to see who kept showing up, who moved on the board and who makes up The Sunday Slate midseason all-star team. Consider this your check-in before the second half.

🗓️ The First Half, Week by Week

• Week 1: Mensah (401 yards, five touchdowns against Stanford) and Malachi Toney (233 yards, three touchdowns) were PFF’s National Players of the Week. Michigan needed a Hail Mary to survive Western Michigan, and Old Dominion’s Jackson Forrest piled up three sacks on seven pass-rush snaps.
• Week 2: The demolition derby. Oklahoma State ended a 21-game FBS losing streak by shocking No. 6 Oregon 39-31, and Arch Manning erased a 20-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat No. 1 Ohio State 24-23.
• Week 3: SEC chaos. Kentucky went into Kyle Field and beat No. 9 Texas A&M, Trinidad Chambliss spoiled Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford with a 32-24 win over LSU, and Kamario Taylor erased a 16-0 deficit at South Carolina.
• Week 4: Colin Simmons tied the Texas record with five sacks in the 20-17 win over Tennessee, Jeremiah Smith went for 217 yards and four touchdowns against Illinois, and Dylan Stewart was suspended at South Carolina.
• Week 5: The upset week. Missouri hung 45 on No. 8 Florida, Alabama beat Mississippi State 56-23, Miami rolled at Clemson 41-13, and Minnesota snapped a 49-year drought against Michigan.
• Week 6: The Texas reckoning. Oklahoma won the Red River Rivalry 27-24 as Manning threw two fourth-quarter picks, UCLA beat Oregon without Dante Moore, Georgia survived Alabama, and Oregon State’s Jesse Legree kept rewriting the freshman record book.

🔁 The Frequent Flyers

Here’s who kept showing up in the weekly recap, and how often each name landed on the good or bad side of the ledger.

• Five appearances:
  • Jeremiah Smith, WR, Ohio State: (Rising Stock callouts Weeks 1 through 5)
  • Arch Manning, QB, Texas (Rising Stock in Weeks 1 & 2; Pumped the Brakes in Weeks 3, 4 and 6).
• Four appearances:
  • Darian Mensah, QB, Miami (Rising Stock callouts in Weeks 1, 2, 3 and 5)
  • Jadan Baugh, RB, Florida (Rising Stock in Weeks 3 & 4; Pumped the Brakes in Weeks 5 & 6)
  • Kamario Taylor, QB, Mississippi State (Rising Stock in Weeks 2-4; Pumped the Brakes in Week 5).
• Three appearances:
  • Clev Lubin, EDGE, Louisville (Rising Stock in Weeks 2, 3 & 6)
  • Jayden Maiava, QB, USC (Rising Stock Weeks 2-4)
  • Trinidad Chambliss, QB, Ole Miss (Rising Stock Weeks 2, 3 & 6)
  • Drew Mestemaker, QB, Oklahoma State (Pumped the Brakes in Week 1, Rising Stock in Weeks 2 & 6)
  • John Mateer, QB, Oklahoma (Pumped the Brakes in Weeks 2-4)
  • Ashton Hampton, CB, Clemson (Rising Stock in Weeks 3 & 4; Pumped the Brakes in Week 5)
• Back-to-back or bookend Rising Stock mentions:
  • Greg Johnson (OL, Minnesota), Chris Cole (LB, Georgia), Xavier Gilliam (DT, Tennessee), Gunner Stockton (QB, Georgia), Jamal Roberts (RB, Missouri), Keelon Russell (QB, Alabama), Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, Luke Talich, Boubacar Traore and CJ Carr (all Notre Dame), Nick Marsh and Charlie Becker (WR, Indiana), Kade Pieper (OL, Iowa), Isaac Brown (RB, Louisville), Julian Sayin (QB, Ohio State), Deuce Alexander (WR, Ole Miss) and Jackson Forrest (LB, Old Dominion).
• Two appearances, one good & one bad:
  • LaNorris Sellers (Pumped the Brakes in Week 3, Rising Stock in Week 6)
  • Dylan Stewart (suspended in Week 4, reinstated and Rising Stock in Week 6)
  • Cooper Barkate (Pumped the Brakes in Week 3, Rising Stock in Week 5)
  • Austin Simmons, QB, Missouri (Rising Stock in Week 5, Pumped the Brakes in Week 6)

📊 By the Numbers

Stat lines that defined the first half

• 207 catches, 3,381 yards, 36 touchdowns
  Jeremiah Smith’s Ohio State career totals through Week 5 of this season are all school records.
  
• 23 straight games with a touchdown pass
  Darian Mensah, who also set an ACC record with 24 consecutive completions against Wake Forest.
  
• 4 straight games of 100-plus rushing yards and 2-plus touchdowns
  Jadan Baugh, only the second player in 20 seasons to do it (Leonard Fournette, 2015)
  
• 5 sacks, 11 pressures on 36 pass-rush snaps
  Colin Simmons against Tennessee, tying the Texas single-game record.
  
• 2,257 yards and 21 touchdowns
  Braden Atkinson, leading the country in both for Oregon State.
  
• 12 touchdowns at 24.5 yards per catch
  Jesse Legree, a true freshman, who now leads the nation in receiving yards and touchdowns.
  
• 4 straight 300-yard games
  Drew Mestemaker, with 10 touchdowns to one interception over his last three.
  
• 1,197 yards, 13 touchdowns, 1 interception
  CJ Carr through five games.
  
• 30 pressures and a 25.9% win rate
  Clev Lubin. We tried to warn you.
  
• 5 interceptions through three games
  Kingston Lopa, tops in the FBS.
  
• 211 yards and three touchdowns
  Jamal Roberts against Florida, the first SEC back to do it against an AP top-10 team since Derrick Henry in 2015.
  
• 2 pick-sixes on back-to-back snaps
  Austin Romaine, a first in Texas Tech history.

📈How the board moved

• Trinidad Chambliss jumped from 22nd to 13th overall and is the consensus QB3.
• Charlie Becker moved from 18th to 9th overall, and Nick Marsh is a locked-in top-35 prospect with the top-15 conversation open.
• Drew Mestemaker is QB1 on Dane Brugler’s midseason board.
• Arch Manning now projects as a Day 2 pick in our eyes, and will likely return to school.
• Dylan Stewart looks like a top-4 player on tape and traits despite a mid-season suspension.
• Chris Cole has top-10 overall upside, Clev Lubin is a top-50 prospect we’d be shocked to see available past the first round, and Darian Mensah is a high-ceiling top-30 pick.

🧭 The Storylines That Defined the Half

The quarterback board is wide open. Mestemaker is gaining crazy steam, Carr and Chambliss appear as steady as they come, Mensah has the best efficiency profile in the country, and Stockton has a clean decision-making résumé that scouts are being forced to look at. Meanwhile, Manning, Mateer, and Missouri’s Austin Simmons have all had weeks that severely hurt their case. A class that looked loaded in August is now a puzzle with no obvious QB1.

Arch Manning’s two acts. Act one: a 24-23 comeback over No. 1 Ohio State and a highlight reel of poise under pressure. Act two: an ugly outing vs UTSA, six sacks against Tennessee, and two fourth-quarter picks against Oklahoma. The arm, anticipation and pocket movement are still NFL-ready. The processing and decision making simply isn’t.

Defense is where the first-round value lives. Simmons (current EDGE1), Lubin, Stewart, Cole, Will Echoles, Xavier Gilliam, Hampton and Lopa headline a group that keeps stacking first-round cases. Notre Dame and Miami have each piled up draft names through the portal, and November will tell us how many are for real.

The receiver room has Smith, then everyone else. Smith is in a tier by himself, but the second tier is stacked: Marsh and Becker in Bloomington, Alexander at Ole Miss, plus Reed Harris and Jordan Faison. At tight end, Hunter Tipton’s 229-yard game and Jamari Johnson’s push for TE1 headline a group that keeps getting better.

The small-school names are real. Tipton at Memphis, Forrest at Old Dominion, Myles Bradley at Bowling Green, Xavier Esqillion at Georgia State and Eli Finley at Louisiana Tech all put up numbers that earn a deeper look. Efficiency on limited snaps is a trait, not a fluke.

The next wave is already here. Legree, Alabama’s Keelon Russell and Mississippi State’s Kamario Taylor are all underclassmen putting up first-round production. Taylor in particular is a 2028 name who’ll be in the conversation for 1.01 here soon enough.

🏆 The Sunday Slate Midseason All-Star Team

Built strictly from our own recaps, favoring sustained production and what the film and metrics told us over any single big game.

Offense

• QB: Darian Mensah, Miami
• RB: Jadan Baugh, Florida
• RB: Jamal Roberts, Missouri
• WR: Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State
• WR: Jesse Legree, Oregon State
• WR: Nick Marsh, Indiana
• TE: Hunter Tipton, Memphis
• OT: Jesse Perry, Tennessee, and Jordan Seaton, LSU
• IOL: Greg Johnson, Minnesota; Kade Pieper, Iowa; and Anthonie Knapp, Notre Dame

Defense

• EDGE: Colin Simmons, Texas, Boubacar Traore, Notre Dame, and Clev Lubin, Louisville
• DT: Will Echoles, Ole Miss, and Xavier Gilliam, Tennessee
• LB: Chris Cole, Georgia; Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, Notre Dame; and Jackson Forrest, Old Dominion
• CB: Ashton Hampton, Clemson, and Andrew Marshall, Nebraska
• S: Kingston Lopa, Cal, and Luke Talich, Notre Dame

🎬 The Second Half

Here’s what we’re tracking when the games resume.

• The QB1 race: Does Mestemaker hold the top spot, or do Chambliss, Carr and Mensah separate once the schedules get tougher?
• Arch Manning’s next move: Three mentions of trending down in four weeks. Does the decision-making tighten up, or is a return to school imminent?
• Dylan Stewart’s interviews: Top-4 on tape and traits. The Alabama incident and suspension could carry weight through the cycle.
• Baugh’s bounce-back: Two stalled outings after four historic games. A bounce-back and stabilized production will be needed to hold down RB1 among a pack of dogs at the position.
• Notre Dame and Miami against real competition: Both defenses are stacked with draft names, and November will tell us how many are the real deal. This has to be the biggest remaining game on the schedule before CFP action.
• Marsh and Becker: We have both Hoosiers in the first round. How high can they go?