College All-Star Game 2020 standouts to watch for in the NFL Draft

Darnay Holmes

Darnay Holmes, CB, UCLA

For as good as this receiver class was down in Mobile, maybe the most impressive skill-position player to me was this kid. Holmes showed out throughout the three days of practice with his combination of speed and physicality to stay in phase with the receiver or close any space between the two quickly. He was all over a bunch of routes, even if he got a little too handsy on a few of them. That includes a couple of reps against Florida receiver Van Jefferson, who ran circles against pretty much everybody else. The former Bruin also showed great catch-up speed when he did lose off the line occasionally. For as well as he did in man-coverage, one of my favorite plays from Holmes came in team drills, where he was responsible for the flats, but once he saw the quarterback try to go over his head, he sunk back and separated Texas’ Devin Duvernay from the ball with a nice hit. With several corners struggling in all the all-star games, Holmes really moved his name up some rankings.

Troy Pride Jr., CB, Notre Dame

I will give you one name at the cornerback position for each the North and South squad. Pride was pretty obvious with a few pulls of the jersey early one, but overall I thought he had an outstanding week. The former Fighting Irish was one of the few to actually beat USC’s Michael Pittman to the spot on day one of one-on-ones and he perfectly undercut a comeback route by Texas A&M’s Quartney Davis for a pick. Unfortunately his lack of size at around 190 pounds was apparent during blocking drills against those big wideout, but I don’t want that to take away from a great performance. Pride provided sticky coverage throughout the week and showed a lot of competitiveness. He also doesn’t seem to be afraid of getting beat deep, which allows him to sit on some breaks and attack the receiver out of them. At the same time I don’t think he got burnt over the top once either.