PFF: College Football: Top five Big Ten players at every position ahead of 2020 start

[Taji34]

College Football: Top five Big Ten players at every position ahead of 2020 start | College Football | PFF

Ohio State's Justin Fields headlines the Big Ten quarterbacks, while Michigan's Aidan Hutchinson leads the way for the conference's edge defenders.

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QUARTERBACK

2. Tanner Morgan, Minnesota
Morgan was one of the biggest surprises of the 2019 season, as he went from outside the top 100 in passing grade the year prior (66.9) to eighth (89.1). His anticipation, in particular, is among the best in the country. Morgan completed 50 passes that were 10 or more yards over the middle of the field on throws we chart as a horizontal lead (i.e., leading the receiver across the field).

RUNNING BACK

2. Mohamed Ibrahim, Minnesota

WIDE RECEIVER

1. Rashod Bateman, Minnesota
There is a reasonable argument to be made that the top three here — Bateman, Moore and Olave — are among the five best wide receivers in college football. Among returning Power Five wide receivers, Bateman and Olave ranked third and fifth, respectively, in receiving grade last year. Moore missed most of the 2019 season due to injury, but he tied for fifth in the Power Five in receiving grade the year prior to that as a true freshman.

CENTER

4. John Michael Schmitz, Minnesota
Schmitz is an interesting prospect because he isn’t even a starter for the Golden Gophers. Yet, he has shown enough to put his name in the ring as one of the conference's best players at the position. He played 452 snaps in 2019 and logged an 85.0 PFF grade — the third-best in the FBS. Schmitz is a nasty run-blocker and was stout in pass protection with just one loss on his true pass sets last year.

EDGE

5. Boye Mafe, Minnesota
On 207 career pass-rush snaps, he has generated a 19.3% win rate and an 82.9 pass-rush grade. Mafe can really win from anywhere on the line and is a name to watch when the college football season gets underway.

CORNERBACK

3. Benjamin St-Juste, Minnesota
St-Juste is one of college football’s most underrated players and has had a bit of a rollercoaster collegiate career. He was a four-star recruit in the 2017 class before committing to Michigan, where he played only three defensive snaps for the Wolverines as a freshman before missing all of 2018 due to injury. Then, it was reported he was medically retiring from the game. But that obviously didn’t hold.

He transferred to Minnesota, earned a big role on the Gophers’ defense and thrived. St-Juste is a tremendous athlete with great length at 6-foot-3, which aided in him recording a 26.2% forced incompletion rate in 2019 — the eighth-best mark in the FBS. And remember, this was his first real taste of collegiate action and his first time consistently on the field since high school in 2016.

 

[WriterGoph]

Um, wow. Never seen anything like this in my Gopher lifetime