2025 NFL Draft Stock Report: Sugar Bowl

2025 NFL Draft Stock Report: Sugar Bowl

After a tragic delay for non-football reasons, the Sugar Bowl rounded out the quarterfinals for the College Football Playoff. Notre Dame beat Georgia 23-10 meaning all of the teams that had a bye ended up losing. Regardless of how awful the format is, we have a ton to talk about when it comes to the 2025 NFL Draft. Without further ado, let’s get right down to business. Here are your Sugar Bowl notes for the 2025 NFL Draft Stock Report!

Georgia

Say whatever you want about Carson Beck. Gunner Stockton is a huge downgrade. Can’t throw the ball down the field at nearly the same level. This Notre Dame defense is actually legit and Stockton couldn’t really get anything going. He actually kinda looks like Stetson Bennett in terms of a comp. Not like he can’t throw. Ball does have some zip on it. It’s just a lot of gimmicks.

Stats don’t really tell the story. Yeah, he was 20/32 for 234 yards and a score but Georgia only put up 10 points in the game. It was their lowest scoring game of the year. The only game close to this in terms of struggling to score was early in the year against Kentucky.

Why does a team win and why does a team lose? You better give some respect to Carson Beck because he deserves it. Screw the stats. Screw the result. Not sure the supporting cast around Beck was great. Left tackle kept getting beat in this game. Georgia led all of FBS in drops. Running game hasn’t been reliable either. Stockton couldn’t do what Beck was doing all year and it showed.

Trevor Etienne had to fumble in this one. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him fumble. Hasn’t really been the case for him in his career. 11 carries for 38 yards of meh. Couldn’t take over the game like he did against Texas the last time we saw him and it showed.

Arian Smith finally did something. Finally reeled in a deep ball over the corner Gray. One catch for 67 yards. One carry for 13 yards. Hands are unreliable but they didn’t fail him in this one. At this point, I think we have a good idea what he is. Want him to return kicks and do weird trick plays? Sure, knock yourself out. Other than that, there’s nothing here other than speed being in his favor.

Dillon Bell dropped what would have been a wide open touchdown in the third. Nobody has dropped more balls than this Georgia team. It’s why I’ve been ripping Arian Smith all year. Bell has actually been the more sure-handed of the bunch.

Honestly, thought it was a bad game for him all around. 12 targets and had six catches for 33 yards. Could have rectified it but the drop killed them. It’s what Beck’s been dealing with all year. Right now he’s a glorified Ben Sinnott on steroids with more upside. I was excited he could be way more than that but this performance didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Cash Jones the receiving back cashes in again. This might sound crazy but he might be the best receiving back out there. Running routes? This dude is sneaky crafty. They never use him as an actual running back running the ball. He’s so good at this area that I’m not sure how he can’t do it at the next level.

Oscar Delp and Dom Lovett got in on the action a bit. The passing game was kinda broken so neither put up big numbers. I think we have both of these figured out too. Lovett is a worse version of McConkey in the slot. Delp actually has shown flashes down the stretch where he looks good and you want him to be Bowers but he’s not close. Delp is more of a mystery but I still think there’s a shot he can be something real but we haven’t really seen it.

Throw the stats out the window. Eyeball test, Mykel Williams, Malaki Starks, and Jalon Walker are absolute studs. Got no problem turning in the card for either in this trio. Georgia should thank them for their service to the program. I’d imagine all of them end up declaring.

Smael Mondon is the one I want to dive into further. God he was good in this one. Team high nine tackles with a sack and TFL. I absolutely love him. Nobody has better linebackers than Georgia and he’s shining out of the group along with CJ Allen. Mondon just has a gear to him most linebackers do not have. Maybe not as polished as Roquan Smith was coming out but he may be more freaky. I’ll take him on my team.

Notre Dame

No Rylie Mills who is out for the year after getting hurt in the game against Indiana. Not sure it mattered. Some of these Notre Dame rushers really stepped up. RJ Oben came up with a sack. He’s a senior and that’s his first sack of the year but it was a nice one. However, this Junior Tuihalamaka played with his hair on fire the whole game. They couldn’t block that guy. A lot of wow moments. Had a sack and two TFLs.

This was really Tuihalamaka’s coming out party. Has mostly played in a reserve role but he’s obviously taken strides forward and now looks like a game changer. I’d imagine he comes back next year given that he still needs to prove this wasn’t a one week wonder but it sure looks there is something here.

Are we sure Jack Kiser can’t do what JD Bertrand is doing at the NFL level? Sure looks legit enough to me.

This may have been one of the few times I’ve seen Xavier Watts and he didn’t come away with a pick. Still had seven tackles, a TFL, and covered up a lot of sins in the back end as he usually does. Complete safety and tackles well. Big fan of his.

Bryce Young tried his best to kill the Georgia punter but beyond that… holy hell that guy will be a freak in a few years.

This Riley Leonard stinks. He shouldn’t even be drafted. Guy is a total disaster. First play of the game, Mykel Williams swats his pass, he catches it and tries to throw it again. An all time noob move. Notre Dame did not win this game because of him. 90 yards passing at 3.8 yards per attempt. Now, maybe you can say he had experience and did enough to win. It looked a lot like Haynes King QB Draw queen. Showed a lot of that garbage. In reality, he looked like if Stockton was a senior and didn’t give the game away. Not sure it’s worth crediting. Honestly, the more I watch him, the more I think he’s worse than even Daniel Jones was at Duke.

Beaux Collins actually scored. It was his only catch of the game but did a nice job fighting off Daylen Everette to finish it off. Not sure anything has changed in my mind because I’m very out but credit to him for doing something. Well, one thing I mean.

Jordan Faison is their best target and he’s a lacrosse player. Jeremiyah Love is totally out of gas. He’s on fumes right now. Mitchell Evans belongs in the 6th or 7th round. I didn’t like Cole Kmet coming out either but I’d take Kmet over the odds of what Evans becomes.

Subscribe to Vendetta’s Twitch

Subscribe to Vendetta’s YouTube

Click here for Vendetta Fantasy Contests

Click here for more NFL Draft content