30 college football players who could go from unknown to first-round pick in 2024

Every year, multiple players find themselves outside the NFL Draft conversation, but there's a reason they call 2025 mock drafts "way too early." There are dozens of players hoping to immensely raise their draft stock.

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl - Ole Miss v Penn State / Todd Kirkland/GettyImages

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17. Drew Allar, QB, Penn State Nittany Lions

Drew Allar is the prototype for making a former quarterback switch positions to tight end. Even though he doesn’t look like it when he throws that pretty deep ball at Happy Valley, he stands at 6-foot-5 and weighs 238 pounds. He’s built for a big-boy game, and that’s what we expect to see in the Big Ten. Adding teams like USC and Washington to the schedule opens the door for more high-profile matchups.

This year, Penn State has a pretty interesting schedule overall. They avoid Michigan, Iowa, and newcomer Oregon. They do have a matchup with Ohio State, which should be the game of the week at that point. They also have one of the marquee games in the first week of the season against West Virginia. Allar has chances to showcase what he can do on a big stage, but he also has ample opportunity to put up monster numbers.

Speaking of monster numbers, Allar’s season last year seems hard to believe. He had 25 touchdown passes and just two interceptions. That seems made up. More than 12:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio is bananas. He’s always been incredibly careful and knows when to throw the ball away. He never takes unnecessary chances, but he still throws the ball down the field on occasion. He has a big arm, so he should use it.

If he repeats those numbers in 2024, how can a team not draft him in the first round? We expect a similar trajectory to J.J. McCarthy, but he’s built in the stereotypical QB mold.

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