#9 Isaiah Bond (WR, Texas)
Bond really took off this past year for the Alabama Crimson Tide before transferring to Texas after the retirement of Nick Saban. He emerged as one of the primary targets for Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe, catching 48 passes for 668 yards and four touchdowns. Bond about tripled his offensive production in his sophomore campaign for the Tide compared to his freshman season.
He will enter 2024 as the projected top wide receiver for the Texas Longhorns and will be catching passes from Quinn Ewers.
Brugler has Bond being selected 24th. The incremental improvement Bond showed however from year one to two has be ranking him as the ninth best prospect and top wide receiver drafted. In my opinion that will get you drafted much higher than 24th.
#10 Quinn Ewers (QB, Texas)
Ewers is going into his second season as the starting quarterback for the Texas Longhorns. Despite it being his fourth season in college in 2024, Ewers will begin the year only 20 years old after reclassifying and graduating high school early before joining the Ohio State Buckeyes for his true freshman season.
Ewers transferred to Austin to play for Steve Sarkisian after his freshman year and has progressed each year. In his sophomore season for the Longhorns in 2022, Ewers threw for 2,177 yards and completed only 58% of his passes. In his junior year, he threw for 3,479 yards and a completion percentage of 69%.
If Ewers continues to improve, he could be even higher than the 14th player off the board in 2025- especially given his positional value.
Brugler projects Ewers to go 14th overall. Truthfully, I do not even think Ewers is a first round talent. However, because of the hype surrounding him and the Longhorns and the anticipated successful season they are going to have, I do think this will help to keep his stock high. This combined with his strong positional value of quarterback and it being a rather weak quarterback class is why I have him even as high as the 10th best prospect.