2017 NFL Draft: Most Disappointing Prospects in College Football This Season

As we head into Week 15 of the NFL season, six teams are officially out of the playoff hunt according to NFL.com, while 12 squads have an impossible path to get more than eight wins on the season. As we get deeper into winter, fans of professional football look to the college football world to solve some of the problems they've seen their franchises struggle through during 2016 Sundays.

For those who don't spend the entire weekend watching football, they may not be following the musical chairs of "draft stock." In an attempt to catch everyone up on a crash course of this year's fluid in-season prospect evaluations, we'll go over the five largest names who have slipped through the process so far.

For whatever reason, be it health, off-field issues, production or opportunity, these players didn't have the 2016 that they wanted, or that we expected in August. We'll explain why these prospects, who were all mocked as first-round picks at some point this summer, fell short of predictions laid out for them.

Chad Kelly, QB, Mississippi

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Chad Kelly, the nephew of Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly, entered this year as the top quarterback senior prospect in the country and the best passer in the Southeastern Conference, the premier league in college football. With that being said, those labels meant very little, as most talented quarterbacks declare for the draft before their final year of eligibility, and the SEC is a defense-led conference.

Still, the expectation for him to step up, to give this draft class some spice, was out there, and there were plenty of eyes on him. Kelly, who is on his third school after being dismissed from Clemson and transferring out of East Mississippi Community College, made headlines in 2016 but probably not for the reasons he wanted to.

After throwing for a worse completion percentage, touchdown-interception ratio, yards per pass average and passer rating than in 2015, Kelly's 2016 was cut short due to a knee injury. Mississippi missed a bowl game by finishing with a 5-7 record, far from when the Rebels peaked as the third-ranked team in the country a year before.

On top of that, Kelly also was involved in a brawl at a high school football game and was allegedly photographed at a table with marijuana. That comes less than a year after his former left tackle, Laremy Tunsil, had a massive draft day drop because of a video of the bookend smoking in a mask was posted on his Twitter account.

Kelly, who bar security once said threatened to "spray" an establishment with an AK-47, has Johnny Manziel-like volatility in his NFL projection, but he never posted a season like Manziel's Heisman year. In a post-Johnny Football NFL, it's hard to imagine who is in the market for him as a top-100 passer, with everything considered.

Nick Chubb, RB, Georgia

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As a freshman at the University of Georgia, Nick Chubb ran for 1,547 rushing yards for the Bulldogs in a two-headed backfield with first-round pick Todd Gurley, who was last year's NFL rookie of the year with the then-St. Louis Rams. In 2015, as a sophomore, Chubb struggled with health but still posted a 8.1 yards per carry average and seven rushing touchdowns off of 92 carries.

Coming into this year, there were high expectations for a fully healthy Chubb. Vanderbilt's head coach, Derek Mason, even went as far as to say that Chubb was the best back his team had faced at the Southeastern Conference's media day event, according to Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports.

Unfortunately, despite carrying the ball 207 times, Chubb only matched his 2015 rushing touchdown total, as the Bulldogs dropped from a 10-win team to a 7-win team. Chubb's yards per carry average even dropped 3.3 yards, a drastic amount.

From a statistical standpoint, Chubb, who is a freak athlete, had a massive decline in 2016. Per David Paschall of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, ESPN's Mel Kiper, the most famous draftnik in the history of the sport, stated that the back should return to school, less than a year after there were debates as to if the Georgia product could be drafted higher than his former teammate Gurley.

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"I don't think Chubb or Michel has maximized his grade yet, and another year might allow that to happen," Kiper said this week on a conference call. "This year did not allow it to happen, so if you're happy being a third-, fourth- or fifth-round pick, you come out. If you want to try and help your stock, you go back for another year."

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To say the least, Chubb is one of the easiest candidates to make this list.

O.J. Howard, TE, Alabama

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As a member of the 2013 recruiting class, O.J. Howard was considered a 5-star recruit by Scout.com, the top tight end in his high school class overall. Other than in the national title game last season against Clemson, though, Howard has never been a heavy part of the Crimson Tide offense.

Heading into that game, Howard had never had a single 100-yard game in his career. Against the Tigers, he posted a 208-yard game with two scores in a 45-40 victory.

According to NFL Draft Scout, Howard is a near-6'6", 251-pound tight end who runs a 4.57-second 40-yard dash. That would make him one of the freakiest athletes in the NFL from the moment he signs his rookie contract.

In the end, opportunity, not execution, has been the story as to why Howard hasn't become an All-American at Alabama. After the title game, he even voiced his frustration with how many touches he received in his career, but he still elected to return for a senior year, despite the fact that he likely could have been a top-100 draft pick last season.

As a senior, he's posted 37 receptions, one less than last season, 445 receiving yards, 157 fewer than last season, and two receiving touchdowns, equaling his 2015 total. Whatever promise offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin made to Howard to keep him in Tuscaloosa for 2016, he's yet to deliver.

Brad Kaaya, QB, Miami

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When freshman quarterbacks start at major programs, the hype train begins. If you really want to track how an Air Raid passer like Jared Goff was able to explode into a first overall pick, a big portion of his assent began when he started off as California's top passer as a freshman.

When Brad Kaaya took over as the head man at the University of Miami, he was crowned as one of the next big things. Through three years, though, he hasn't been able to piece together a season of quality play on the relative scale of first-round passers.

When Mark Richt, who groomed Matthew Stafford at Georgia, was named the head coach of the Hurricanes, many assumed that he would be able to develop Kaaya into one of the top quarterback prospects in the nation. With Kaaya finally eligible for the 2017 draft, the bar was set high.

In 2016, though, he only recorded three games against FBS opponents, Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh and Duke, who, combined, went 10-14 in ACC play, in which Kaaya both threw for at least one touchdown and threw no interceptions. Over the course of the season, names like North Carolina's Mitch Trubisky and Notre Dame's DeShone Kizer rose up as potential first-round picks, while Kaaya has dropped out of mock drafts.

Kaaya's best bet might be to stay in school, as his career arch has started to follow the likes of former USC quarterback Matt Barkley as a preseason first overall pick candidate who just never filled the shoes that the media laid out for him.

Dawuane Smoot, EDGE, Illinois

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Last year, Jihad Ward of Illinois was a major riser at the Senior Bowl, going from a faceless player in Mobile, Alabama to an eventual second-round pick with the Oakland Raiders. When draftniks ran through Illinois' 2015 season, though, they found that another defensive lineman on the team might even have a higher ceiling than Ward's.

His name is Dawuane Smoot, and he's one of the few freak athletes on the defensive line who didn't declare before his senior season. Under the guidance of former NFL coaches, like head coach Lovie Smith, it was assumed that Smoot would improve on his seven-sack total from his junior season.

He did manage to improve his tackles for a loss total by a half-tackle, at the mark of 15, but his sacks numbers dropped all the way down to five in 2016. For a player who was thought of as a possible first-round pick, it's incredibly hard to make the case that this athletic pass-rusher who didn't produce for a 3-9 program is going to be worth a high pick in the draft.

Had he posted a Shaq Lawson-type of year in 2016, he very well might have been a top-20 type of selection come April.