It was evident Bech’s “Mobile moment” affected him deeply. In addition to his game-winning TD, he recorded a game-high six catches for 68 yards. He was named the 2025 Reese’s Senior Bowl MVP.

“Man, it’s simple,” Bech said to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero after the game. “My brother had some wings on me. He gave it to me. And he let that all take place.”

Bech has scored plenty of times, reaching the endzone thirteen times in his collegiate career. This was different, though. This score carried extra weight; it was a moment of triumph deepened with profound meaning — it was the first touchdown Tiger couldn’t witness.

Every route, every catch, has become a tribute to his late brother. Tiger was more than Bech’s brother — he was his "best friend" and "role model." His memory is permanently etched in ink: "7 to Heaven" spans Bech’s left collarbone, while Tiger's dates, inscribed in Roman numerals, rest over his heart.

A not-so-known draft prospect prior to the 2024 season, Bech improved his draft stock with an impressive week in Mobile, Ala. Aside from his heroics in the game, he was a standout during practices. The TCU product consistently won one-on-one matchups, showcasing good ball skills and a physically imposing demeanor. What particularly stood out was the blend of speed and power Bech has at 6-foot-2, 215 pounds.

Behind Bech’s awe-inspiring week in Mobile lay years of development and transformation. After a promising freshman campaign at LSU in 2021, where he amassed 43 catches for 489 yards and three touchdowns, Bech transferred to TCU in 2023. He sought more playing time in the Horned Frogs' offense. He couldn’t surpass Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. — both 2024 first-round picks — on the LSU depth chart. Under head coach Sonny Dykes' air-raid system, Bech was able to shine. This past season, Bech caught 62 passes for 1,034 yards and nine touchdowns. His breakout performance against UCF — a 200-yard, one-touchdown showcase — thrust him into the limelight of the NFL evaluators.

Tiger Bech never reached the NFL, though it was his dream. Jack Bech seems destined to fulfill that vision — carrying both their dreams forward as one.

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Of course, this was during Penn State’s Blue-White game back in April, which also gave the first look at Carter playing his new position.

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When reports surfaced in April that Carter would be transitioning from an off-ball linebacker to a full-time defensive end, it became front-page news in college football and the NFL draft community.

It was a surprising move, albeit one that made sense. In two seasons as a linebacker, Carter excelled. He recorded 11 sacks, 104 tackles, 16 tackles for loss, 10 quarterback hurries, and three forced fumbles. However, Penn State was losing Chop Robinson and Adisa Isaac, two highly-productive defensive ends that accounted for 44.5 tackles for loss the prior two seasons. Both had declared for the 2024 NFL Draft — Robinson, a first-round pick and Isaac, a second-round pick.

In his first year filling their shoes, Carter had over half of their production.

Carter accumulated 12 sacks, 23.5 tackles for loss, and a constellation of pressures. Despite the narrow loss, his best game of the season came in his three-sack performance against Ohio State. His previous displays of quarterback harassment from the second level had merely scratched the surface compared to what he could do as a full-time edge rusher.

The transition from linebacker to defensive end allowed us to see Carter’s freak-like abilities. In this instance, “freak” is an endearing description. At 6-foot-3, 252 pounds, he’s quick-twitched and violent with incredible burst and change of direction skills — skills the most dominant edge rushers in the NFL possess. At times during this past season, he was utterly untouchable; he got off the line of scrimmage so quickly that in the blink of an eye, the opposing tackle or guard he’d just screamed past was looking back in bewilderment.

Penn State got creative with Carter, which also showed NFL scouts his versatility. According to PFF, Carter lined up six times in the B gap, nine over tackle, 627 outside tackle, and 92 off-ball, which he had been accustomed to from his days at linebacker.

After Carter’s dominant season, inevitable parallels to former Nittany Lion Micah Parsons emerged. Parsons is widely considered one of the NFL’s best edge rushers. Undoubtedly, both wearing No. 11 has something to do with it — a number that has become synonymous with greatness in Penn State’s football program — but Parsons, like Carter, began as a linebacker and transitioned to defensive end. At least that was Penn State’s plan for Parsons, who opted out of the 2020 season due to the pandemic. With a season’s worth of tape at defensive end, it’s fair to wonder whether Parsons, the No. 12 pick, would have been selected higher.

Common knowledge in the NFL is that if you have players who can get to the quarterback, the likelihood of winning football games is higher. In turn, there is a higher chance of reaching the crux of the NFL season: the Super Bowl. Because of that, pass-rushers are highly valued. Not only is high draft capital often expended on the position, but money is too. Edge rushers are the highest-paid non-quarterbacks in the NFL. The highest-paid right now, San Francisco 49ers’ Nick Bosa, signed a five-year, $170 million extension last season.

In an era where the NFL is placing a premium on edge rushers, Carter's emergence couldn't be more perfectly timed. Amidst the maelstrom of draft speculation, he now finds himself in the conversation to be the first-overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

After a 3-14 season, the Tennessee Titans hold the first pick. While they desperately need a quarterback, newly-minted general manager Mike Borgonzi said in his debut press conference, “We won’t pass on a generational talent with the first pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.”

To me, that signals two players: Carter or Travis Hunter, the Heisman Trophy winning WR/CB from Colorado. Most will think it’s the latter, but I believe it’s the former. Hunter, the two-way phenom, most certainly could go No. 1 and not many would bat an eye. But what he’ll play in the NFL is still a mystery: will he be primarily be a cornerback and have packages at wide receiver, or will he be a wide receiver and moonlight on defense?

With Carter, you’re getting a certainty — a bonified disruptor whose potential at edge rusher is through the roof.

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Ashton Jeanty was always on the go. His father, Harry, was a military man, so Jeanty followed him wherever he was stationed — Virginia, Texas, Jacksonville, Fla., where he was born, and even Italy. He’s called many places “home.”

Jeanty’s father was stationed in Italy for three years, and trying to hone his football skills in a country that has little value towards the sport was challenging, to say the least. His only option was to play with an Italian-based squad against other military schools.

Put simply, the competition was lackluster.

Or maybe he was just that good.

Jeff Rayburn thought so.

Rayburn, head coach of the powerhouse Frisco Lone Star High School football team in Frisco, Texas, welcomed him with open arms. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s not often a player with Jeanty’s skillset falls into a coach’s lap, and when they do, you shouldn’t question it. He certainly didn’t.

Jeanty wasn’t coming with much experience, just a Hudl highlight reel of his time giving the business to the Italians he faced for the past three years. But his sheer size and athleticism were plentiful for Rayburn. He saw what college football fans see now: A running back built like a Toyota 4Runner with jet-like acceleration.

The only problem was that Frisco Lone Star already had good running backs, so Jeanty was put on defense. He waited three years for his turn after playing outside linebacker and safety. But when he finally got his shot, the stats that ensued were purely absurd.

In 12 games his senior season, Jeanty recorded 1,843 yards on 229 carries (8.0 yards/carry), 810 yards on 41 receptions, and 41 total touchdowns (31 rushing, 10 receiving).

Jeanty is the booming Boise Bronco that many people don’t know

It’s OK if you don’t know who Ashton Jeanty is. Heck, I didn’t either until I did some more digging on the 2025 NFL Draft class. The Boise State Broncos don’t get nearly the amount of airtime time as Power 5 schools. But I’ll say this: Jeanty is must-watch TV.

In Boise, Idaho, Jeanty is preparing for the 2024-25 season. Coming off his best season in blue, rushing for 1,347 yards and 14 touchdowns on 227 carries while adding 569 yards and four more scores through the air, he’s got one thing in mind: rush for 2,000 yards. He even went as far as to make a bet with teammate Mason Randolph that if he does, he’ll cut his dreadlocks.

“It’ll make him block harder,” Jeanty laughed while talking to reporters.

Eclipsing 2,000 yards in a single season is a tough task to accomplish, but if he does, he’ll cement his name among a laundry list of CFB stars, many of which went on to have extremely successful NFL careers. That’s not the only thing he wants, though.

BSU has produced many successful running backs — Cedric Minter, Brock Forsey, Jay Ajayi, Jeremy McNichols, and Alexander Mattison. Jeanty wants the throne at the top of the list.

“I want to be the next best running back to come through here. And I think that’s one thing that will stamp me — certify me — as a legendary running back to come through Boise State,” Jeanty said at Boise State’s media day.

Jeanty has the makings of a 2,000-yard rusher. The reigning Mountain West Conference Offensive Player of the Year forced 106 missed tackles (1st in NCAA) last season and compiled 1,243 yards (1st in NCAA) after contact.

Jeanty is about to break out, more than he already has. You won’t want to miss it.

“There are a lot of great running backs in college football right now. That, to me, is more motivation. I feel like I’m the underdog,” he told Boise State reporters. “I’ll prove I’m one of the best, if not the best.”

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The final day of the 2024 NFL Draft on Apr. 27, 2024, felt like an eternity for Kyle Sheets, who anxiously waited for his exceedingly large dream to come to fruition inside his cousin’s home in Linesville, Pa.

“The whole day was probably one of the most stressful days,” Sheets said.

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The NFL draft consists of 257 picks over the span of seven rounds, followed by a wave of free-agent signings for undrafted prospects. Sheets knew his time would be then, roughly seven and a half hours after the fourth round kicked off at noon. So once the New York Jets submitted the draft's final pick, Sheets sat close to his phone, waiting for his life-changing phone call.

It didn’t take long for his phone to light up.

The incoming call? His agent, John Pace, with a contract offer from the New Orleans Saints.

“When I finally got the call, I didn’t know how to feel,” Sheets said. “If I’m being honest, I don’t know if it’s really set in yet.”

The Saints were the first to get a hold of Pace, and despite later suitors — the Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers all had interest — it was an easy choice for the former Slippery Rock wide receiver.

“It’s an actual dream come true that I’ve been chasing toward my entire life,” Sheets said. “I’m extremely blessed that the Saints have taken a chance on me and given me a pedestal to go out and show what I can do...I can’t thank them enough.”

Kyle Sheets has a small-school, feel-good story that is not only one worth being told but one worth reverberating for small-school players with similar globe-sized aspirations. He took a remarkable path to get here, beginning in a middle-of-nowhere Springboro, Pa., with a population of less than 1,000.

Sheets’ first glimpse of football was when he and his father, Harold Sheets, would watch the elder’s high school film together when he was a running back at Conneaut Valley High School, which is one of three schools that now make up a larger Conneaut Area Senior High School (CASH), where younger Sheets attended. CASH is roughly 12 miles south of Springboro.

His passion for the game ignited during those film sessions, and his flame only grew larger and larger after each season he continued to play.

Once Sheets got to CASH, he played most of his career at quarterback, specifically his freshman, junior and senior seasons.

“I’m not going to sit here and say I was some very good quarterback,” Sheets laughed. “I was just playing the game and picking matchups.”

The other position he had experience at was wide receiver, which was just his sophomore season and the final game of his senior year. But he favored catching passes rather than throwing them; growing up as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, he loved watching Santanio Holmes. So as Sheets immersed himself into the vast landscape of college recruitment, he did so at WR.

He flew a bit under the radar during the recruitment process. Slippery Rock was his first offer. “We highly recruited [him],” head coach Shawn Lutz said. “We just saw a long athlete, untapped, with the potential of not even playing the position he was going to play.”

Lutz was very familiar with Sheets even before the recruitment period. Lutz’s son, Logan, who attended Grove City Area High School, faced off against Sheets multiple times in both football and basketball during those years.

“You just got a chance to see him take off and run,” Lutz said. “He was so long, so athletic. His frame was unbelievable. Then you turn over to basketball, and you really got a chance to see him go up and down the basketball court."

A week before signing day, Penn State got in on Sheets. The Nittany Lions offered him a spot as an invited walk-on, and their interest was enough to convince Lutz he lost out on Sheets. Lots of prospects would quickly jump at the lure from the Big Ten powerhouse. Playing football in Beaver Stadium comes with nationally televised games and a program known for producing NFL-level talent. Yet ties to Henry Litwin, a current Slippery Rock WR at the time and Sheets’ former H.S. teammate, ultimately helped Lutz land his guy.

The leap from high school to college football is sizeable, but it was much larger for Sheets due to his rawness.

“When you’re coming out of high school, you just run routes and try to get open,” he said. “The game is a lot faster and a lot more technical when you get up [to college], so my freshman year was a lot of learning, my sophomore year was a lot of learning and my junior year was a lot of learning.”

After essentially being a sponge, those seasons he spent soaking up information fostered a better understanding of the intricacies of the position. And once he put the technicalities and traits together, he broke out grandly.

After a combined 24 catches for 367 yards and three TDs in his first two years, Sheets amassed 54 catches for 887 yards and nine touchdowns as a junior and one-upped that with 76 catches for 1,186 yards and 17 TDs as a senior.

Simply put, he was nothing but dominant in his final two years.

Lutz’s over-the-phone scouting report as to why Sheets couldn’t be stopped:

• He can freakin’ fly.

• At 6 foot 4, 220 pounds, he can jump extremely high.

• His biggest intangible: He can high-point the football (thanks to his basketball background, which Sheets emphatically credited for his skillset at WR).

“The games definitely translate,” Sheets said about his basketball history. “The jump ball is a big thing. You're always going up for a rebound, you want to get that at its highest point.”

Sheets’ basketball background undoubtedly played a factor in his success, but he worked strenuously for it.

In the summer of 2023, he was completing his internship for Slippery Rock, working eight hours a day. After each eight-hour day, he would head straight to voluntary summer football workouts for three more hours. Though they were voluntary, he never missed one.

“I feel like guilty or something if I don’t go to something, but I wanted to be there too,” Sheets said. “It was a lot of work.”

In those years before his ascension, Sheets affixed himself with former Slippery Rock wide receivers Litwin, Jermaine Wynn Jr. and Cinque Sweeting.

“Sitting back and learning from them was definitely like one of the best things that has ever happened to my football career,” Sheets said. “They did nothing but help me.”

All three received the chance to play at the next level in 2022, with Litwin signing with the Chicago Bears as a UDFA, Wynn Jr. signing a free-agent contract with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and Sweeting being drafted by the Vegas Vipers of the Extreme Football League (XFL), which has now merged with the United States Football League (USFL) to create a larger United Football League (UFL). Along with showing Sheets the ropes at Slippery Rock, they also showed him there is a path to professional football out of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC).

Speaking with Sheets, two things are evident: He’s soft-spoken and he’s modest. Following his junior year breakout, Lutz knew even before Sheets that the NFL was realistic. But to make it in the NFL, especially at the WR position, you have to have a certain mindset. For the wide receivers, it’s a bit diva-ish. Sheets is nothing like that; he’s a team-first player. So Lutz tried to instill in Sheets that diva-like mindset NFL wide receivers possess. “You got to have that mindset, like ‘give me the ball’, ‘give me the ball every time we need a big play,’” Lutz told him.

He added, “I saw it in the spring going into his senior year that we could not stop him. He had just had to work on that mindset of being a little bit selfish. He carried that over to the very beginning of the year.”

The thunderclap moment in Sheets' career that announced him as a potential NFL draft prospect came his senior season. In a 42-21 blowout win over Millersville just three weeks into the season, he had 12 catches for 210 yards and three touchdowns, including a 74-yard score.

After a three-touchdown game, a 2023 Consensus All-American (AFCA, AP, D2CCA, Hansen) nod, a 2023 First Team All-Region selection and cementing himself among multiple records during his tenure at The Rock (3rd in career TD catches, 4th in career receiving yards, 7th in career receptions), the NFL no longer felt like a pipe dream.

Sheets acknowledged that he’ll have to start his career on special teams and work his way up, but that’s nothing new to him. Before his stardom with Slippery Rock, he took a somewhat traditional path to success — backup in his first two years, starter the next and then a two-time All-PSAC selection at the end of his career.

For Sheets, this opportunity with the Saints isn’t solely about his football dream reaching its culmination thus far; it’s about him having that aforementioned pedestal to stand on for other kids coming from small schools.

“Obviously, football is something that I love to do,” Sheets said, “but I’ve always done it in hopes of being a role model and being on that pedestal for others to see that, if you really want something and you work for it, anything is possible regardless of where you come from.”

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“It’s unreal.”

That’s what running back Dylan Laube, an NFL draft prospect from the University of New Hampshire, said after seeing his name continuously appear in the same sentences as San Francisco 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey and Washington Commanders’ Austin Ekeler.

Those comparisons aren’t far-fetched. In fact, they’re fitting in a sense. Laube, known for his versatility as a receiver in the passing game, models his game on the two aforementioned players. He’s so effective in the passing game that solely deeming him a running back understates his abilities on the field. That receiving aspect is one of the reasons McCaffrey and Ekeler have had so much success in the NFL.

Last season, in New Hampshire’s second game of the year against Central Michigan, the lone FBS team it faced, Laube caught 80-yard and 71-yard touchdowns en route to 12 catches for 295 yards. On the ground, he rushed 7 times for 30 yards and added another touchdown. He was unstoppable, an enigma Central Michigan’s defense had no answer for.

He ended last season, his senior season, with 158 carries for 715 rushing yards and nine touchdowns while adding 68 catches for 699 receiving yards and seven touchdowns through the air.

That versatility has been getting Laube a significant amount of NFL draft buzz.

As a kid growing up in Westhampton, N.Y., Laube’s dream was always to play football at the highest level. He was a high school football standout at Westhampton Beach High School but was under-recruited; he was offered one scholarship to play football: UNH. The team’s contingent offered him once they saw him at their junior day camp. One of the reasons behind that scholarship offer was that his playstyle and skillset resembled the team’s RB from 2012-2016, Dalton Crossan.

In his career at New Hampshire, Crossan rushed for 2,617 yards and 27 touchdowns and caught 105 passes for 775 yards and eight TDs. After going undrafted in the 2017 NFL Draft, Crossan signed with the Indianapolis Colts and later had a brief stint with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“He (Crossan) was the same type of player as me, a versatile guy,” Laube said. “When they (UNH) saw me, they offered me that night. I committed a week after they offered me…It was just like meant to be.”

The NFL was within reach for Laube after flourishing in his junior season. He rushed for 1,205 yards and 15 touchdowns on 245 carries and caught 49 passes for 464 yards with two more TDs. Agents were calling him non-stop, telling him that if he declared for the NFL draft then he’d be a priority free agent. That’s when he realized he could make it to the NFL, and he knew that his draft stock was only going to go up after his senior season.

However, there were some doubts about whether or not that would be with the Wildcats; Laube contemplated entering the transfer portal. But, after some conversations with head coach Rick Santos, along with others, he chose to return to Durham, N.H. Their pitch? Santos was going to build the offense around Laube’s versatility.

Laube was learning to be ubiquitous on the field in the spring leading up to his senior season. Santos and the offensive staff wanted to showcase his receiving skills in this somewhat new-look offense. He was essentially a chess piece in the Wildcats’ offense.

“All spring, he basically just played slot receiver,” Santos said. “About 90% of the time he was out wide. We were teaching him the entire route tree in our offense: how to run it, certain leverages and stems, ID’ing certain coverage stuff that he hadn’t done as much.”

Fast forward to November. Right before New Hampshire’s final game of the season against Maine, Laube got word of a prestigious invitation. This opportunity would generate even more draft buzz than he had already been getting: He was invited to the 2024 Reese’s Senior Bowl.

“It was such a huge honor,” Laube said. “That’s the one where, if you’re in college football, that’s the one you want to truly go to. It’s the highest stage, the best players in the country. If you want to show you truly belong, that’s the one you want to go.”

The invitation wasn’t the typical package with the black New Era hat sporting the game’s historic logo, easily recognizable by any NFL draft fan. (Don’t worry, he received it later.) He first found out from a phone call from his agent. Laube didn’t care, though. Anytime he gets an opportunity to compete, or even be associated with football, effervescence emerges.

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To put it simply, Laube is a football guy. It’s his life. If he’s watching something, it’s football-related. If he’s doing a physical activity, it’s football-related. If he’s talking about something…There’s a good chance it’s football-related.

“I’m just a football guy,” Laube said. “I will bleed for this game.”

Laube is full of ambition. He works hard on his craft, spending countless hours behind the scenes so he can stand out on game day. Nobody wants to succeed more than him.

“I can count on one hand the amount of guys that have that competitive drive, stamina and work ethic,” said Santos, who’s coached at the collegiate level since 2016, spending three seasons as the quarterbacks coach at Columbia University before joining UNH as an associate coach, taking over as head coach in December of 2021. “Whether it was offseason lifting, offseason conditioning, where most of the guys are dreading it at 6:00 a.m., he was the one that would get up and be enthusiastic about it.”

“He truly enjoyed the process…He loved the weight room,” he added.

Laube’s assiduous approach to training and being a student of the game led to him being a two-time FCS All-American selection (2022-2023), CAA Special Teams Player of the Year (2023), Walter Payton Award Finalist (2023) and a two-time First-Team CAA Selection (2022-23).

There’s no doubt that Laube belongs in the NFL. Throughout the process, Santos has reassured him that. But it’s a sizable leap from the FCS to the NFL, and he’s already facing adversity.

“Coming from a small school, and [being] a white RB…I think that itself is such a huge obstacle,” Laube said.

Since 2013, 9 running backs/fullbacks coming out of FCS schools have been drafted to the NFL — only one was white (Kyle Juszczyk, Harvard). Laube is set to be next.

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Following the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., where he briefly met with just about every single NFL team, Laube began training for the NFL combine. The combine is another part of the draft process that allows prospects to separate themselves with their athletic testing. He did just that.

Here are Laube’s testing results from the 2024 NFL Combine and how he stacks up against the rest of the RBs:

40-Yard Dash: 4.54 seconds (13th)

20-Yard Shuttle: 4.02 seconds (1st)

10-Yard Split: 1.52 seconds (T-2nd)

3-Cone: 6.84 seconds (3rd)

Vertical Jump: 37’’ (7th)

Broad Jump: 9’10’’ (13th)

Bench Press (225 pounds): 23 reps (5th)

“I think I did the best I could, and I truly showed everyone that I’m that shifty, versatile guy,” Laube said. “I killed it.”

So far, Laube has had one 30 visit with the New Orleans Saints and has another one scheduled with the Chicago Bears. Right now, he appears to be an early Day-3 pick — a consensus projection. Though, the NFL draft is crazy. Many times, prospects are selected higher than thought, and, conversely, prospects fall lower than their projection.

Nonetheless, there is a high probability — and I mean high — that Laube will hear his name called in Detroit, Mich. If that happens, he will be just the 18th New Hampshire Wildcat drafted into the NFL. The last was Jared Smith, drafted in the 7th round (No. 241) of the 2013 NFL Draft.

Getting drafted would be the culmination of Laube’s dreams. He’s faced challenges. He’s heard the critics. But the chip on his shoulder has only grown larger because of that adversity.

“From everyone saying I’m too slow, I’m not fast enough and I’m too small…I’m proving to everyone I truly belong in this game.”

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