Ranking the Best 5th-Year Seniors in College Football in 2016
College football scholarships provide the opportunity for four seasons of competition spread over five years, which allows players who aren't ready or needed as freshmen to get a chance to ease into the college game. Even with more and more freshmen getting thrown into the fire right away, there are still quite a few who wear a redshirt that first season.
That means if they stick around until the end, they become fifth-year seniors, the highest level of experience in college.
The top fifth-year seniors tend to be a mixture of late bloomers and those who put academics over athletics, forgoing any dreams of playing football professionally until their college days are complete. Some also had to sit out a year somewhere in the middle, either because of injury or a change in schools. These are the 12 best, ranked in order of their individual abilities and what they will mean to their respective teams in the 2016 season.
12. Hardy Nickerson Jr., LB, Illinois
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Hardy Nickerson played in 35 games for California over the past three seasons, many of them as a starter in the middle of the Golden Bears defense. Last year he led Cal in tackles with 111. It was his fourth year with the program since he redshirted in 2012, and with degree in tow, he had options for what to do with his final season of eligibility.
Staying at Cal seemed like the best route until new Illinois coach Lovie Smith hired his father, Hardy Nickerson Sr., to be his defensive coordinator. He couldn't pass up the chance to play for his father, as well as be part of a Fighting Illini defense that was 30th in 2015 but needed someone with his experience. Thus, he made the move as a graduate transfer.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Nickerson Jr. said in April, per Scout.com.
Ironically, Nickerson is replacing another graduate transfer (second-leading tackler T.J. Neal), who left Illinois to finish his career at Auburn.
11. Zach Banner, OL, USC
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Few players are taller than 6'9" Zach Banner, and even fewer weigh in bigger than the 360 pounds he's spent his career carefully sculpting from fat into muscle. This took a little while, but now Banner is heading into his third season as a starter for USC.
Banner, the son of former Washington and NFL offensive tackle Lincoln Kennedy, took a redshirt his first season in 2012 and saw action in USC's first two games in 2013 before getting shut down and having surgery on both of his hips. Fully recovered in 2014, he started all 13 games at right tackle.
He started 12 of 14 games there last season, playing left tackle the other two games when injuries caused the Trojans to shuffle their line. He'll start on one side or the other this fall, and next April he should get drafted early, as Bleacher Report NFL draft expert Matt Miller ranks him the No. 6 offensive tackle on his early big board.
10. Jehu Chesson, WR, Michigan
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Michigan has several fifth-year seniors on its roster for 2016 including its top two wide receivers. We went with Jehu Chesson over the equally accomplished Amara Darboh because of the momentum Chesson brings from the end of the 2015 season.
Getting redshirted in 2012 and then serving as a part-time starter the next two seasons, Chesson entered last year with 29 catches for 375 yards and a touchdown. He wasn't involved in the passing game for the first half of 2015 (though he had two rushing scores and a kickoff return TD), but then he became one of Jake Rudock's favored targets down the stretch.
All nine of Chesson's TD catches last year came on or after Halloween, including four in Michigan's wild November win at Indiana, where he had 11 receptions for 207 yards. He added 100-yard games with TDs against Michigan and in the Outback Bowl against Florida, finishing with 50 catches for 764 yards overall.
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9. C.J. Beathard, QB, Iowa
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C.J. Beathard should be considered a case study in perseverance and loyalty, not giving into the allure of transferring elsewhere to get a chance to play. He redshirted in 2012 and only appeared in one game in the first two months of 2013 before getting a little more time late in the season, including logging his first career touchdown pass in the Outback Bowl against LSU.
The following season, Beathard earned his first start, beating Purdue one week after replacing Jake Rudock in a comeback win over Pittsburgh. When the 2014 season ended, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz almost immediately named Beathard his starter for 2015, which prompted Rudock to transfer to Michigan.
Last year was Beathard's first as a full-time starter, and his 2,809 passing yards were the most for a Hawkeyes quarterback in four years. Now he's one of eight senior starters, though he's a hobbled veteran after undergoing sports hernia surgery in January and injuring his throwing shoulder in April.
"I'm hopeful when he gets back here he's 100 percent," Ferentz said, per Chad Leistikow of HawkCentral.com.
8. Shock Linwood, RB, Baylor
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Shock Linwood should become Baylor's career rushing leader this fall, so long as the foot injury that knocked him out in December doesn't continue to cause problems. With 3,462 yards, Linwood needs 213 more to surpass Walter Abercrombie's tally from 1978 to 1981.
He topped that yardage in a September win over Texas Tech last October, going for 221 yards and two touchdowns en route to 1,329 yards and 10 TDs in his junior season. Linwood hurt his foot in the regular-season finale against Texas, which knocked him out of the Russell Athletic Bowl win over North Carolina, where the Bears ran for a bowl-record 645 yards.
If Linwood had been a part of that performance, he'd have challenged Terrance Ganaway's single-season school mark of 1,547 yards from 2011.
Linwood, who redshirted as a freshman, sat out spring ball while recovering from the foot injury.
7. Travin Dural, WR, LSU
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One injury delayed the start of Travin Dural's college career, and another might have prolonged it. Had he not suffered a torn hamstring in November that required surgery, Dural might have entered the NFL draft.
Jim Kleinpeter of NOLA.com wrote that Dural has been drawing the eye of pro scouts for years and could have been a first-round pick in 2016 because of his size (6'2", 203 lbs) and “smooth stride.” There's also his career yards-per-reception average of 19.9 yards.
In addition, 12 of his 72 catches have resulted in touchdowns.
LSU's passing offense has been subpar throughout Dural's career, minimizing his impact to this point. If the Tigers can throw the ball more effectively in 2016, that could lead Dural to match his career numbers in one season.
Dural was on pace to contribute as a true freshman in 2012 before suffering a season-ending knee injury during training camp.
6. Marcus Maye, S, Florida
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Earning All-American status is among the many things that draft-eligible college football players use as a springboard to enter the NFL draft early. Marcus Maye was a first-team choice by USA Today and Pro Football Focus, which rated him as the eighth-best safety in the country in 2015, yet he still opted to come back for another year of school.
A fifth, to be exact, since Maye took a redshirt as a freshman in 2012.
Since then Maye has been steadily climbing up Florida's depth chart, starting twice in 2013 and nine times in 2014 before claiming the full safety job full-time last year. In 2015 he had 82 tackles and forced five fumbles along with two interceptions and six pass breakups, numbers that bode well for him moving over to strong safety this fall.
5. Carlos Watkins, DT, Clemson
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Clemson has prided itself on its ability to develop defensive linemen into stars, as five have been drafted the past two years. Carlos Watkins is on pace to join that group, but it's taking him a little longer to complete the journey.
Watkins was a lightly used reserve as a true freshman in 2012, making 16 tackles in nine games, and in 2013 he started the season opener against Georgia. But three weeks later he was a passenger in a car accident, suffering injuries that kept him out for the rest of the year.
The 2014 season saw him return in a reserve role, stuck behind Grady Jarrett and other seniors, but last season he finally got his shot and produced 3.5 sacks and 7.5 tackles for loss while earning all-ACC first-team honors from the league's media.
Watkins is now the lone senior on a talented but relatively inexperienced defensive line, which puts him in a leadership role for the first time. Among his tasks is mentoring No. 2 overall prospect Dexter Lawrence.
4. Pat Elflein, OL, Ohio State
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Ohio State's projected starting lineup for 2016 is thin on experience from an overall standpoint, but a few of those returners have been around awhile. Quarterback J.T. Barrett is heading into his third season of running the offense, with Pat Elflein blocking for him in every one of those games.
Elflein has started 28 consecutive games for the Buckeyes, splitting time at both guard positions in 2014 and holding down right guard for all of 2015. With center Jacoby Boren graduating, Elflein has moved to the middle for his senior year.
"I’ve lost a little bit of weight, I’m quicker, stronger so I feel like it’s going to be a great transition and I’m excited about it," Elflein told Eleven Warriors' Eric Seger in February.
Elflein redshirted in 2012 after a foot injury limited him, and he was a backup in 2013 before earning his first start in the Big Ten championship game.
3. Seth Russell, QB, Baylor
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Seth Russell dressed for most of Baylor's games in 2012 but didn't play in any, since the program had no reason to waste his eligibility for minimal use with Nick Florence and Bryce Petty ahead of him on the depth chart. Who knew at the time how impactful that decision would be to the Bears' hopes in 2016?
After backing up Petty in 2013 and 2014—and throwing 11 touchdown passes on 128 attempts thanks to plenty of mop-up duty in blowout games—Russell ascended to the starting spot last year after holding off highly touted freshman Jarrett Stidham. Russell was on pace for a monster year, with 2,104 yards and 29 TDs in seven games, before breaking a bone in his neck late in a win over Iowa State.
The injury required surgery and shelved him for the rest of 2015. Baylor started 8-0 but lost three of four after both Stidham and third-string QB Chris Johnson got hurt.
Russell returned to the field this spring and retained his starting job, which prompted Stidham (and Johnson, who had been converted to receiver) to transfer. If he can stay healthy, he has a shot to break Florence's school record of 4,309 yards from 2012.
2. Devonte Fields, LB, Louisville
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The way Devonte Fields' college career began, it seemed he would never end up on this list. His first season was so impressive that it was much more likely he'd head to the NFL after three years instead of stick around for all five, but Fields' career path took a few turns since he started college in 2012.
Fields was the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year as a true freshman after registering 10 sacks and 18.5 tackles for loss for the Horned Frogs and was named the league's Preseason Player of the Year in 2013 before an injury limited him to three games (and a redshirt). An off-field incident led to his dismissal from TCU, sending him to junior college to try to resurrect his career.
Louisville gave him a second chance, and Fields has made the most of it, tying for third nationally with 22.5 tackles for loss last season. That came as a hybrid linebacker/defensive end, tapping into Fields' speed coming off the edge, compared to his time at TCU, where he was strictly on the line.
1. Chad Kelly, QB, Ole Miss
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Chad Kelly believes he's the best quarterback in college football, qualifying that statement at SEC media days by saying "in order to have confidence in yourself and team, you have to think you're the best," per Greg Ostendorf of ESPN.com. Some other passers in the country might disagree with Kelly's opinion, including one at his former school, but there's much less debate when it comes to fifth-year seniors.
Regardless of position, Kelly is tops on our list. Even with only one full year of FBS competition under his belt, that lone season was good enough to warrant this ranking and to assume he'll match that success in 2016.
Kelly started his career at Clemson, redshirting in 2012 and then seeing minimal action in 2013. The program dismissed him in spring 2014, which resulted in a stint in junior college before he joined Ole Miss for the 2015 season. And though he didn't fully win the starting job until after the season began, by year's end he had rewritten the school's record book.
Single-season marks for passing yards (4,042), total offense (4,542) and total touchdowns (41) were among his accomplishments while he helped Ole Miss to its first 10-win season in more than a decade.
All recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports, unless otherwise noted. All statistics provided by CFBStats, unless otherwise noted.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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