North Carolina Tar Heels: Quiet Draft?
The North Carolina Tar Heels may have won a lot of games but their seniors do not capture the imagination of scouts.
The North Carolina Tar Heels played their spring game yesterday and it was nice to see those many familiar faces on the football field once more. The team had a halftime ceremony to celebrate graduating seniors and present them with their Coastal Division champion rings.
It was a chance to applaud Shakeel Rashad, Jeff Shoettmer, Landon Turner, and Sam Smiley once again. Quinshad Davis and Marquise Williams were not present either because they had not graduated yet or perhaps they were off doing other draft related activities.
The NFL Draft is coming up and while the first round talent gets all the attention, there will be other rounds involved. Which means those other Tar Heels may have the opportunity to play at the next level. So what does the NFL have to say about these guys?
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Not much really. Scanning through positional ratings for the Tar Heel seniors finds only one of them expected to be drafted at all. That is big Landon Turner who owns a fifth round grade. Now that grade could change depending on team need so Turner could easily go in the fourth round or the sixth. The only thing that projection means is that he will probably be drafted.
Some of this is not a real surprise. Romar Morris was buried behind other running backs. Williams showed a lack of touch on short throws besides his occasional hiccups with interceptions. Smiley was injured more often than not. Shoettmer was good at doing the best at what he had, but just not quite being fast or strong enough.
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The two surprises were Rashad and Davis. Rashad just moved to linebacker last year and he had a big year making tackles and turning a question mark into one of the more reliable positions on the team. It is hard to know what he would look like with more seasoning. Of course that lack of seasoning is probably why scouts are not sold on him. Hard to believe that no 7th round pick would go unused on Rashad.
Davis on the other hand has lots of seasoning. His production was not consistent. He set school records but much of that dirty work was done when Bryn Renner was the quarterback. He did not really outshine the other receivers in his last two years. Still a 6’3 scoring threat should be taken a little more seriously. Like Rashad, it will surprise me if no team takes a chance on Davis.
That is the passing analysis on the potential Tar Heel pros. NFL scouts may well differ with draft analysts about them, but right now it seems that it will be a quiet draft for the Tar Heels.