College football Week 1 falls across the holiday weekend, making the Labor Day break a great time to catch some game action. It will be the first chance to check out a plethora of potential pro prospects across the CF landscape.
The first big weekend already kicked off with strong performances from a couple of premium prospects in North Carolina’s win over Minnesota. Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter also launched their 2025 draft stocks higher in Colorado’s exciting win over North Dakota State.
With a slew of games coming on Saturday, here are some of the players to watch with an eye for the 2025 NFL Draft.
Barrett Carter, LB, Clemson
Carter enters the season as one of the top off-ball LB prospects; many analysts thought he would declare for the 2024 NFL Draft.
Twitchy, smart and intense, Carter has a lot to offer. His range from the middle of the field to the sidelines in coverage and on stretch runs might be the best in class. Carter will be tested by a physical Georgia offense that has a savvy QB in Carson Beck. Carter’s play strength and positional discipline are the last boxes he needs to check in his final season at Clemson, and he gets a national stage to start.
Malaki Starks, S, Georgia
Starks is atop many a preseason big board at safety, including my own. He’s about as complete of a package of a safety prospect as you’ll find, and the fact he’s only 20 years old makes Starks even more intriguing. Clemson has some legit athletes of their own that can threaten Starks in space and force him to demonstrate he hasn’t lost any sharpness in his eyes or tackling this offseason.
Garnett Hollis, CB, West Virginia
Hollis transferred to West Virginia from Northwestern, and the sturdy 6-foot-1, 200-pounder begins his Mountaineers career facing a familiar old foe, Penn State. Last year at Northwestern, Hollis had arguably his best game of the season in coverage against the Nittany Lions. If his in-your-face style and growing confidence he showed in the game last year transfers quickly to West Virginia, you’ll start seeing Hollis’ name in a lot more top-100 lists. The potential is there.
Dani Dennis-Sutton, EDGE, Penn State
Dennis-Sutton gets overshadowed by his PSU mate Abdul Carter, who could be the next first-rounder from a school noted for cranking out EDGE prospects. Bigger than guys like Micah Parsons and Chop Robinson (to name two), Dennis-Sutton is a different style of Penn State pass rusher. He’s more power-to-speed but it’s somewhat unrefined, and he’s stiffer athletically. When he gets that long stride clear, No. 33 can cover a lot of ground very quickly.
West Virginia is solid and well-coached on the offensive line, a good opening match for a player in Dennis-Sutton hoping to climb up from early Day 3 projections to start the season.
Maurice Westmoreland, EDGE, UTEP
Many expected Westmoreland to transfer up the CFB food chain after a very strong 2023 season for the Miners, but the 6-foot-2, 250-pound bundle of aggressive energy stayed at UTEP. He was an All-CUSA talent and led the conference in sacks. Oh yeah, he also finished in the top five in shot put in track.
UTEP doesn’t get many games in the national sun. Westmoreland and the Miners play Nebraska, a team with a high-profile mark to get the budding draft prospect a lot more attention.
Hunter Zambrano, OL, Illinous State
One of the benefits of the non-conference matchups are when FCS players get to face the big boys. That’s the case for perhaps the best FCS offensive line prospect for 2025, Illinois State’s left tackle Hunter Zambrano. In limited viewing, Zambrano looks like he’s got the footwork and snarl to handle his business when the Redbirds play at Iowa. It’s Zambrano’s best chance to be seen and elevate his stock until the Shrine Bowl or Senior Bowl.
Nick DeGennaro, WR, Richmond
Another FCS vs. FBS matchup proving ground for a prospect who earned a spot on the Senior Bowl watch list, this one sees promising Richmond wideout Nick DeGennaro face in-state rival Virginia. DeGennaro began his college career at Maryland but has found a home with the Spiders, setting the program record for touchdowns in 2023 (11).
In his last outing against a power team, DeGennaro managed just 29 receiving yards against a bad Michigan State team a year ago. This year, the shifty 6-footer adds punt return duties to his repertoire in hopes of showing scouts what all he can do.
Howard Cross III, DT, Notre Dame
Cross produced some excellent game tape early last season for Notre Dame before cooling off. That led him to come back to South Bend for a sixth season of college.
As you might expect from the son of a longtime NFL player, Cross brings a high football IQ, high effort and strong technical polish to his game. But to be more than a later-Day 3 prospect, Cross will need to show he can beat athletic offensive lines like the one Notre Dame faces in Texas A&M on Saturday. At just 6-1 and 282 pounds, Cross is an undersized tackle who also isn’t exceptionally fast beyond his first burst and his modest production (3 sacks in both ’22 and ’23). The stage is set for Cross to show he’s worthy of more.
Nic Scourton, EDGE, Texas A&M
It’s the first look at Scourton in an Aggies uniform after the twitchy pass rusher transferred from Purdue. He’s got great length and power on the outside, though he didn’t always finish what he started for the Boilermakers. A new team, a new scheme that will let him be more aggressive off the snap, and more physical comfort at his playing weight in the 280 range (he was 238 when he arrived at Purdue in 2022) has Scourton poised for a potential first-round status.
Notre Dame lost both offensive tackles from last year’s squad to the NFL, but the Irish consistently churn out well-coached talent. If Scourton debuts big against them, he’ll be a fixture in the top-20 big boards for the rest of the year (barring injury).
Garrett Nussmeier, QB, LSU
Nussmeier is LSU’s new starting QB, but he’s far from a newcomer. He’s seen limited action in each of his first three seasons for the Tigers. Now he gets to step into the shoes of Heisman Trophy winner and No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels.
Nussmeier is already touted as a prospect for the skills he’s shown in those relief appearances. He’s got a premium tier arm and can let it fly from varying platforms. In the past, his arm strength got him into some turnovers (11 TDs vs. 7 INTs), but now he doesn’t have to worry about doing everything all at once as a reserve.
Nussmeier opens up against USC, another team breaking in a quarterback after losing Caleb Williams to the NFL. The game will be in Las Vegas on Sunday, a good chance to sate the football thirst on the last Sunday until February with no NFL football.
This article originally appeared on Draft Wire: 10 prospects to watch over Labor Day weekend
