Brooks has a couple Notre Dame products leading the backfield options: Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price; the latter elevated a spot and unseated Minnesota native and Nebraska product Emmett Johnson, who is RB3 now. Washington’s Jonah Coleman and Arkansas’ Mike Washington, Jr., complete Brooks’ list.
Touted as “the clear headliner,” Brooks views Love as a Top 5 overall player in this class. His Fighting Irish teammate, meanwhile, is “an intriguing Day 2 possibility” due to his explosiveness as a runner/returner. Johnson is more unheralded, “but many scouts and coaches are smitten with his potential as a dynamic RB1,” Brooks said. Coleman is 5-foot-8 and 220 pounds and impressed Brooks with his quicks and wiggle.
Washington was previously unranked by Brooks and “has enticing potential as a big back with explosive speed and quickness” despite his game production not aligning with his physical tools or potential, yet.
Flipping sides now, Brooks ranked the following safeties in his Top 5: Ohio State’s Caleb Downs, Pittsburgh’s Kyle Louis, Oregon’s Dillon Thieneman, Toledo’s Emmanuel McNeil-Warren and LSU’s A.J. Haulcy. Their ordering stayed the same as Brooks’ initial ranking, but it’s peculiar nonetheless because …
Downs, Thieneman and McNeil-Warren have all regularly appeared in first-round mockups, and Louis is going through the pre-draft process as a linebacker but projects in the NFL as a hybrid box-area defender.
Brooks wrote the following about Louis, whose skills could make him coveted by defensive coordinators:
The 6-foot, 220-pounder plays with the violence and physicality needed to stop running backs in their tracks, while also displaying the range, awareness and anticipation to attack underneath/intermediate throws. As teams begin to narrow their focus to role-specific defenders with significant upside, Louis’ reputation as a splash-play specialist [25.5 career TFLs, 10 sacks, six INTs] could move him up the charts.
You can read the rest of Brooks’ updated rankings here.