Top 5 safeties in college football

As the 2020 college football season winds down, 2021 NFL Draft talk will heat up. Here are the top five safeties in college football, a group of future NFL Draft prospects.

Just missed the cut: Budda Bolden (Miami), James Wiggins (Cincinnati)

1. Trevon Moehrig (TCU)

In his first season as a full-time starter last year, Moehrig recorded 43 solo tackles, four interceptions, 11 PBUs and a couple of fumbles forced. He primarily has been the field-side safety in two-high looks for TCU, but also has plenty of experience rotating towards the deep middle of the field, because he absolutely has the range to do either.

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I like how balanced he stays throughout plays and doesn’t allow run- or screen-fakes to pull him away from his responsibility, while also feeling like his reaction time has reduced.

Moehrig is great at anticipating and driving on routes over the deeper middle in quarters coverage, but because he caps over slot receivers and the Horned Frogs like to blitz their nickel, he is tasked with plenty of man responsibilities, where he is not afraid of getting beat deep, has excellent short-area burst to attack breaks, as well as the speed to trail guys across the field.

He just had a tremendous game against Oklahoma State last week, when he made a couple of key stops and had a huge interception in the end-zone, when the Cowboys were about to take the lead. With that being said, at time Moehrig just sits on routes and has to put hands on receivers as they get to his toes, if that guy doesn’t just blow by him with a running start (Devin Duvernay in 2019 for Texas), Plus he is certainly an ankle-tackler, who just dives at the legs of the ball-carrier occasionally.

2. Richard LeCounte III (Georgia)

Lecounte is one of my dudes. At 5’11”, 190 pounds he may not have an intimidating stature, but he is like a flying missile out there on the field and brings a ton of juice to the Bulldog defense.

He has only played in five games this season, because he reportedly had a motorcycle accident, but in his 33 games as a starter, he has recorded about 100 solo tackles, eight INTs, ten more PBUs, four fumbles forced and six recovered. The way he zooms up the alley and runs into blockers without any hesitation is so fun to watch.

Lecounte has been asked to execute a multitude of coverages – single high duty, quarters, matching #3’s in man vs. trips, while Georgia rotates their safeties down a whole bunch, especially this season. And he has that ball-magnet quality, where he allows his feel and preparation to lead him to the right spot.

With that being said, he can be a little too aggressive with angles and biting on the first key, plus he comes in too hot as a tackler and doesn’t break down appropriately.

As far as projecting him to the next level, I think there are some concerns about how he projects as a true free safety or if you want to trust him one-on-one against those really dynamic receivers in man-coverage.

3. Paris Ford (Pittsburgh)

Since we’re talking about my kind of guys – Ford is someone I really enjoy watching too. While he is only six foot, 190 pounds, he is a tone-setter for that Pitt defense and plays with great urgency for four quarters.

In his first season as a full-time starter in 2019, he recorded 56 solo tackles (90 total), three interceptions, of which he scored a TD on one of them, nine passes broken up and three forced fumbles. He has a quick trigger against the run and routinely blows up screen passes, while wanting to come in late on every tackle and making sure the ball-carrier lands on his back. As a solo-tackler he takes away ground quickly, but then does a good job of throttling and making a safe stop.

Ford is mostly used in two-high shells as the boundary safety, but is can absolutely take on single-high and box responsibilities as well. He has really oily quicks and the click-and-close ability to drive on routes, to give with the speed to run stride-for-stride with fast receivers down the seams.

However, he is much more comfortable coming downhill, rather than choosing the proper angles from deep alignment and his feel in coverage at the back-end is still improving.

4. Richie Grant (UCF)

When you read what the UCF coaches say about Grant in terms of his work ethic and athletic skill-set, they are blown away by this guy. His numbers in coverage last season were crazy, as he brought in six interceptions and broke up four more passes, while allowing just 21 catches, with none of them going for more than 25 yards, which was part of making him a first-team All-AAC selection.

However, while he does line up in on the wide side in split-safety looks, they put him as the +1 in the box a lot and bring him off the edge quite a bit. I really like the way he races up against the run and the great pursuit he shows.

Grant has no issues picking up receivers in two-deep coverage that were carried up to him and he excels at disrupting the catch-point. He also has plenty of experience covering slot receiver one-on-one, with rapid footwork and the ability to reach around targets.

While I enjoy his work down low, when he is left as the last defender, you see those dynamic athletes shake him at times and he is little too aggressive against play-fakes, which puts him in tough spots.

5. Kolby Harvell-Peel (Oklahoma State)

Man, Harvell-Peel fills out that six foot, 210-pound frame. To me he has been the biggest key for this Oklahoma State defense, which was one of the top scoring units in the country until the Oklahoma game, in which he had a few sequences himself.

The numbers he put up in 2019 are pretty crazy, at 71 total tackles, five INTs, 13 more passes broken up, a couple of fumbles forced and recovered each.

Harvell-Peel almost always plays boundary safety, but has plenty of experience rolling to the deep middle of the field. However, the function I like him most at in coverage is as a robber, where I really like the awareness for targets around him and how he takes away throwing windows. The Cowboys coaches bring him down into the box, where he does not shy away from running into pulling guards or filling gaps as run-defender.

He is an excellent face-mask tackler, who brings his hips through on contact. With that being said, there is a little stiffness in his hips as well not having that free safety top-end speed, which leads to him makes him very conservative in MOF duty, making routes behind the second level highly effective against him.

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