Nevada vs Southern Mississippi Sheraton Hawaii Bowl Draft Watch: QB Austin Davis Looks to Improve Draft Stock

Today the Nevada Wolfpack take on the Souther Mississippi Golden Eagles in what could be a very interesting football game. The Golden Eagles cost their conference millions of dollars when they knocked off Houston a couple of weeks ago thanks in large part to the excellen play of quarterback Austin Davis.

These two schools aren’t huge names, but there are some draft prospecs to check out in this game if you’re not all footballed out after  watching the N.F.L. games or if you have a life and are doing something with your family on Christmas Eve.

Southern Mississippi Has two really intriguing prospects.

The first is Quarterback Austin Davis  (scouting report) . Davis might have had a breakout performance against the Houston Cougars, but he’s been a quality under the radar draft prospet all season. Davis is one of the most productive players in Southern Mississippi’s historty, surprassing Brett Favre in many categories. Davis is a good athlete who moves around well and can throw the ball on the run a bit. Davis and the Golden Eagles offense relies on a shorter passing game though so Davis hasn’t had a million oppotunities to prove his downfield arm strength, but he can throw a pretty sprial and rifle the ball in there in short distances. Reminds me a bit of Ryan Fitzpatrick. He’s the player to watch in this game…can he get his stock into the early part of day three?

The other prospect for the Golden Eagles is DE/OLB Cordarro Law

Cordarro Law doesn’t have great size, but he does decent size at 6’2 260 pounds. He doesn’t have enough size to play DE in the N.F.L, but could develop into a nice 34 outside linebacker. Law has had a big year with 17.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks to go along with four forced fumbles. He has a lot of experience (he’s a redshirt senior). Law is a pretty impressive athlete with good closing speed and some abilities as a natural pass rusher.

Nevada

For Nevada their top prospect, and the best prospect in this game is Linebacker James Michael Johnson (JMJ from here on out). JMJ is the most likely prospect in this game to win a starting job early on in his career. He’s our 7th best ranked inside linebacker currently , and I don’t really see him passing any of the guys ahead of him, but he could get up to this point across the boad with a big performance. He could also move up if any of those players return (Manti Te’o reportedly is returning next year).

We haven’t written a scouting report on him, but Wes Buntin describes him:

Is a good athlete who can run, close on the football and play with power in the run game. Needs to play a bit lower in coverage, but overall does everything at a pretty solid NFL level. Is a guy who can win a starting job at the next level early on

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