2020 Senior Bowl: Justin Herbert, Jalen Hurts and 5 players to watch

The 2020 Reese’s Senior Bowl is chock full of talent. Here are the five players you have to watch during Saturday’s college all-star game down in Mobile.

The 2020 NFL Draft will be here before you know it. College football season has ended, but we have one more big game left to be played. The Senior Bowl taking place at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Alabama is the last game for these players hoping to make a big impression on the NFL scouts in attendance.

Admittedly, some years have better senior talent than others. In most cases, it comes down to how many good quarterbacks and defensive linemen make themselves available to play in this game. Fortunately for us, we have plenty of both that’ll get to showcase their football talents in one last game before they turn pro.

Though it’s impossible for all of these talented seniors to go in the first two rounds of the upcoming NFL Draft, a few might hear their name called on the first day of the 2020 NFL Draft in Las Vegas. They’ll get to ride into the mists of Avalon on that draft-party barge to the stage set up in the middle of the most glorious fountain in front of the Bellagio. It’ll be a spectacle.

While we have no idea which players in this year’s game will end up the best pros, here are five players you will definitely want to keep your eye on in the Senior Bowl. Maybe one of these guys will be the reason your team ends up winning the Lombardi Trophy in the next few years?

Redshirt senior kicker Rodrigo Blankenship will be the only Georgia Bulldog playing in this year’s Senior Bowl. The bespectacled field-goal kicking phenomenon put together a storied career at Georgia. He became the first Georgia kicker to win the Lou Groza Award, putting himself right in the conversation of College Football Hall of Famer Kevin Butler as the best kicker in school history.

Blankenship will be drafted by somebody this year, probably on day three. His leg has gotten stronger every year he played for Georgia. He routinely drilled kickoffs out of the back of the end zone as an upperclassman. Blankenship made 82.5 percent of his field-goal tries in college and never missed a single extra point. He’s the most clutch kicker entering the draft.

Blankenship is a man of high character, as he was named to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team while at Georgia. Many of his clutch kicks over the years are why Georgia won three straight SEC East division titles during his time in Athens. Blankenship’s greatest kick was the 50-yard bomb at the end of the first half vs. the Oklahoma Sooners in the 2018 Rose Bowl. The legend had begun.

Overall, it remains to be seen if Blankenship will have anywhere near as success of a professional career as he did in college. His accuracy and his clutch gene are why he has a great chance to succeed in the NFL. Though he may not be a candidate to drain 50-yarder after 50-yarder at the next level, he’s certainly going to win a starting job this fall and make a team better.