2017 NFL Draft: Top Prospect Matchups to Watch During Bowl Season

Some of the lower-tier bowl games already kicked off this weekend, but we still have premier matchups in college football stretching through Jan. 2, not including the national championship game. Ten NFL teams have already been mathematically ruled out of the playoffs according to NFL.com, and four more have less than a five-percent chance to make the playoffs per FiveThirtyEight's forecast.

With nearly half of the league out of the playoff race, there's never been a better time for fan bases to jump into the draft cycle as high-quality teams go head-to-head in nationally televised games, about as close to NFL competition as you're going to come by at the college level.

We'll break down the five biggest matchups, in terms of importance and what we're going to learn from these prospects on an individual basis, over the next three weeks. Nine days after the national championship, the NFL's underclassman deadline for early declarations is set.

Draft season is approaching faster than you can say "first-round pick."

John Ross vs. Marlon Humphrey

Roger Steinman/Associated Press

According to OddsShark, Alabama is between a 14.5- and a 15.5-point favorite against Washington in the Peach Bowl, one of the two first-round playoff games leading up to the college football national championship.

If you're trying to formulate a game-flow theory that finishes with the Huskies upsetting the Crimson Tide, one leg of the hypothetical has to include Washington wideout John Ross having a career performance on the largest stage of his life.

Ross, who compares similarly to DeSean Jackson, is one of the best receiver talents in college football. Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel does one of the best jobs of covering the NFL draft as a beat writer, and the article he published on Saturday night previewing the draft class included Ross being the top receiver mentioned in the potential 2017 draft class.

At the same time, though, Marlon Humphrey, Alabama's stud cornerback, was the first cornerback mentioned in the same piece, too. To some extent, this is an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Minkah Fitzpatrick, who is ranked as NFL Draft Scout's fourth-best cornerback prospect from the 2019 draft class, should also give Ross some looks he hasn't been able to see in Pac-12 play.

These Alabama defensive backs have already gone head-to-head with two of the top 10 receivers in college football this year. In the season opener, they held USC's JuJu Smith-Schuster, a potential first-round pick, to just one reception and nine yards with Max Browne at quarterback. Alabama limited Texas A&M's Christian Kirk, a talented underclassmen, to 58 receiving yards and a 6.4 yards-per-reception average.

For reference, Kirk only fell short of both of those numbers in one other game this year, against the Auburn Tigers, and that was Smith-Schuster's least productive game of the season. If Ross, who has 17 receiving touchdowns as a sub-6'0" target, can put numbers on the board against this Crimson Tide secondary, the arrow will be pointing sky-high for the redshirt junior.

Corey Davis vs. Power 5 Talent

Michael Conroy/Associated Press

Corey Davis is a receiver from Western Michigan most of the country hasn't seen, but he will be one of the premier draft prospects in this coming cycle and a top rookie in your 2017 fantasy football draft. Western Michigan has gone 13-0 this season, earning them a spot in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas against the eighth-ranked Wisconsin Badgers.

Davis has posted 5,205 receiving yards and 51 touchdown receptions underneath the nose of the general public, which should be enough for his resume, but questions about level of competition linger. The Brandon Marshall-style receiver has played against two Big Ten Conference teams already this season, but both Illinois and Northwestern failed to get over .500 during the season.

To say Wisconsin is the best team the Broncos have faced this season is an understatement. According to TeamRankings.com, Western Michigan was a three-point favorite against Illinois. The Broncos opened the season as just a 3.5-point underdog against Northwestern, the one time they've been an underdog this year. Against Wisconsin, they are projected to be 7.5-point underdogs.

Wisconsin's defense is aggressive in terms of blitzes, which means Davis will be in man-on-man situations often should the Badgers play to their 2016 trends. If Davis can prove he can beat Power 5 athletes in man situations, he can roll that momentum through the draft cycle where more eyes will be on him at a potential All-Star game and combine than he ever had in Kalamazoo.

There will likely be more scouts in the house for Western Michigan-Wisconsin than any game Davis has previously played in. That matters.

For example, according to Jacksonville.com's Tania Ganguli, a major reason why the Jacksonville Jaguars traded up for Missouri quarterback Blaine Gabbert in 2011 was because then-general manager Gene Smith was there to see Gabbert play in the Insight Bowl against Iowa. Despite the fact Gabbert lost the game, had a QBR of 52.7 and threw two interceptions, seeing the quarterback live made a difference for NFL decision-makers.

Hype matters in the NFL draft, right or wrong. Davis is a star mid-major prospect playing in a game of national interest, for both fans and personnel staffs alike, and that shouldn't be swept underneath the rug.

Mitch Trubisky vs. Solomon Thomas

Gerry Broome/Associated Press

The two highest-rated prospects in this season's Sun Bowl, a matchup between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Stanford Cardinal, are players who were barely discussed this offseason as potential 2017 draft prospects.

North Carolina's top player is quarterback Mitch Trubisky, while Stanford's defensive end Solomon Thomas has surpassed running back and former Heisman finalist Christian McCaffrey as the Cardinal's most impactful player.

Trubisky, a one-year starter with the Tar Heels, is a mobile, strong-armed player coming out of a spread-heavy system under one of the nation's best coaches in Larry Fedora. Though he has just one year of significant playing time, Trubisky is still a fourth-year player, and rarely do you ever see a potential top-100 quarterback prospect return to school for a fifth season.

In many ways, he's very similar to former Texas A&M quarterback and current Miami Dolphin Ryan Tannehill, who possessed all of the talent you could ask for coming out of college. But because of his time spent at receiver, he was underdeveloped and inexperienced.

The same could be said of Trubisky, but because Marquise Williams, who was in the Green Bay Packers' training camp this offseason, kept the now redshirt junior off the field.

In ESPN's Todd McShay's most recent mock draft, Trubisky was his top quarterback prospect off the board with the 30th overall pick. The 31st pick in McShay's mock is Thomas, who just might be the most talented defensive lineman in the Pac-12 over the last two seasons.

Thomas is just a redshirt sophomore, but with the lack of rotation on Stanford's defensive line, he's seen more reps since the 2015 season kicked off than most defensive linemen see in their entire college careers.

Thomas has played a bit of everything for the Cardinal, from nose tackle to 5-technique to edge-defender, but his projected 6'2", 271-pound frame by NFL Draft Scout correlates best as a 4-3 defensive end than any other position at the next level.

Thomas ranked in the top five in the Pac-12 in both tackles for a loss and sacks this season, joining only Utah's Hunter Dimick and potential first-round pick Takkarist McKinley of UCLA in both categories. The difference is, Thomas is playing mostly as an interior defensive lineman right now, and interior pressure is more impactful on quarterbacks though it is more difficult to record statistics from the position.

If Trubisky is on the fence about declaring for April's draft, his ability to handle the pressure Thomas throws out on the field is going to be a solid gauge on how he should see himself moving forward. A breakout game could push Thomas into the 2017 class, too.

Dalvin Cook vs. Michigan's Front Seven

Mark Wallheiser/Associated Press

If you look at who is dropping into coverage for Michigan between Heisman finalist Jabrill Peppers and potential top-60 cornerback Jourdan Lewis, it's going to be difficult to tell anyone Florida State wants to go into the Orange Bowl and throw the ball around with their freshman quarterback Deondre Francois.

Not when their top skill player on the offensive side of the ball is Dalvin Cook, a running back who is overshadowed by LSU's Leonard Fournette but plays like Kansas City's Jamaal Charles. Cook has recorded 1,620 rushing yards, 18 rushing touchdowns and ranks second for the Seminoles in receiving yards in 2016.

At the same time, though, Michigan's defensive front is just as strong as their back end. Peppers can play inside or outside of the tackle box in a given personnel grouping, while defensive linemen Taco Charlton and Chris Wormley make their push to secure top-75 draft status.

Charlton, who dominated against Ohio State in one of the most-watched football games this season, is starting to build up first-round hype, too. If Cook wants to make a case to be the first running back off the board in 2017, he needs to have a big game against the Wolverines.

This will be the toughest font seven he has faced in his career, and that can add an exclamation point to his college years. If scouts start to juxtapose a quality game from Cook in this spot to Fournette's 17-carry, 38-yard effort against Alabama this season or his 19-carry, 31-yard game in 2015, the tide may turn. Fournette skipping out on LSU's postseason can't help him if Cook "goes off," either.

Deshaun Watson vs. Ohio State's Secondary

Chris O'Meara/Associated Press

Coming into the season, Clemson's Deshaun Watson was the quarterback many tabbed as a potential first-overall pick. After showing out in the playoffs last season looking like Vince Young against USC when going toe-to-toe with Alabama's historically deep defense, expectations were high.

Since then, names like Miami's Brad Kaaya have fallen out of the first-round race, while Notre Dame's DeShone Kizer and North Carolina's Mitch Trubisky made the most in their first seasons as true full-time starters. Kizer isn't in a bowl game so if Watson wants to separate himself from the three-man pack, his performance against Ohio State, and possibly the national championship, is going to be important.

Per Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, two of the top four cornerbacks in the country, Marshon Lattimore and Gareon Conley, play for Ohio State, Clemson's opponent in the Fiesta Bowl. Both listed at over 6'0", making them perfect for today's NFL where Cover 3, Cover 4 and man defenses all lead to one-on-one perimeter matchups with wideouts.

This should be a great test for both sides, as a down ACC has led to Watson falling a bit back in the spotlight, especially with Heisman-winner Lamar Jackson stealing some of the shine as the conference's top passer from an execution standpoint.

If Ohio State can get Watson and potential first-round receiver Mike Williams on rhythm in a playoff game, or the Watson-Williams connection rings strong throughout New Years Eve, draft stocks will shoot in either direction.

Ohio State is a 3- to 3.5-point favorite in this game according to OddsShark, meaning this matchup will likely be enough to swing the game one way or another, deciding who will likely face Alabama in the national championship, a team both squads have faced in the playoffs since the 2014 season.