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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Entertainment
Kevin Sweeney

ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. Names Shedeur Sanders One of Top QBs in 2024 NFL Draft

Shedeur Sanders’ remarkable start to the 2023 season at Colorado has the star QB in the Heisman Trophy conversation. Now, he’s starting to rise NFL Draft boards.

Sanders, who has thrown for more than 900 yards and six touchdowns without an interception in wins over TCU and Nebraska, is now projected as a first-round draft pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, per ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. Kiper, appearing on Monday Blitz, said Monday that Sanders is now a “guaranteed high first-round pick” should he turn pro in 2024.

Kiper currently has Sanders as the third-best quarterback in the 2024 class, behind USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye. But should Sanders stay at Colorado for his senior season in 2024 (and spend another year with fellow Buffaloes star Travis Hunter), Kiper believes the star QB would be on track to be the favorite to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 draft.

“If he stays at Colorado, we’ll be talking about him next summer like we’re talking about Caleb Williams right now – No. 1 pick guaranteed,” Kiper said. “So he’s got a decision to make. We’ve gotta be excited with everything we’ve seen right now, with not only this football team, but particularly Shedeur Sanders. What a quarterback he is.”

The meteoric rise for Sanders, who spent the first two seasons of his college career playing for his father at Jackson State, has been remarkable to watch. That said, some criticized Kiper for being so reactive to two games against Power 5 competition given how well Sanders had played at Jackson State, where he threw 70 touchdown passes and completed better than 65% of his passes in two seasons.

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