2026 NFL Draft Prospect Watch: Top Matchups To Watch In Week 7 of the CFB Season
Thor Nystrom outlines which top 2026 NFL Draft prospects he's going to be paying the most attention to in Week 7 of the college football season.
Ahead of Week 7 of the 2025 College Football season, I've outlined matchups that I have circled on the schedule that feature top 2026 NFL Draft prospects squaring off. Here is what I'll be watching for this weekend.
2026 NFL Draft Prospects To Watch In CFB Week 7
No. 8 Alabama at No. 14 Missouri | 11a CST | ABC
Missouri, coming in off a bye, drew sharp money in the market early in the week, with this line coming down to Alabama -3.
Missouri is undefeated but hasn’t exactly faced a gauntlet, with the Tigers’ best wins coming over Kansas and South Carolina. Alabama, which has the No. 3 strength of schedule, lost to Florida State in the opener but has since won four straight, including victories over Georgia and Vanderbilt.
Alabama’s biggest task on Saturday is slowing down Missouri RB Ahmad Hardy, a true sophomore who leads the nation with 730 rushing yards and 46 missed tackles, per PFF. On the other side of the ball, Missouri is going to have its hands full with Alabama’s NFL-esque passing attack.
One interesting subplot is that these staffs know each other intimately. Missouri OC Kirby Moore worked under both Alabama OC Ryan Grubb and HC Kalen DeBoer at Fresno State, and Missouri DC Corey Batoon worked under Alabama DC Kane Wommack at South Alabama.
Top prospects: Alabama WR Germie Bernard and Missouri OL Cayden Green
Bernard, who sits No. 25 overall on my big board, is an out-of-the-box starting NFL wide receiver. He has proven that he can win at all three levels and that he’s interchangeable between the boundary and slot. In Kaleb DeBeour’s system, Bernard is trusted just like Rome Odunze, Jalen McMillan and Ja’Lynn Polk used to be.
Bernard is an interesting player in that he’s built more like a running back, and he can handle manufactured touches around the line of scrimmage, but he also has the precise route-running chops to win in the intermediate sector, and the juice and ball skills to threaten downtown. He’s a puzzle for opposing defenders.
In this game, he draws Missouri redshirt senior CB Stephen Hall predominantly. Hall stands under six feet, but he’s over 200 pounds and has the physical game to muscle Bernard off the line and try to throw a kink into his short-game machinations.
Missouri is currently awaiting the status of starting LT Cayden Green, who has been out since suffering a foot injury against South Carolina in September. A preseason All-American left guard, Green shifted to LT in fall camp and was dominant the first three games before hitting the shelf. He’s a top-50 overall prospect on my board.
On Tuesday, Mizzou HC Eli Drinkwitz indicated that Green is questionable for Alabama. After Green’s injury on Sept. 20 against the Gamecocks, Drinkwitz initially said, “It could be three weeks, it could be five weeks.” If Green hits the early end of that timeline, he could be on the field against the Crimson Tide. Missouri desperately needs him in this matchup against an Alabama defensive front with multiple NFL prospects.
Best one-on-one matchup: Alabama OT Kadyn Proctor vs. Missouri EDGE Zion Young
Proctor is already looking like he’ll be one of the 2026 class’ most polarizing prospects. The former five-star recruit has been Alabama’s starting left tackle since he stepped foot on campus.
He’s shown plenty of top-10 overall flashes, but inconsistency continues to plague Proctor. He struggled to open the season against Florida State and Wisconsin—which opened the door for speculation that Proctor won’t be able to hack it at offensive tackle in the NFL. Proctor has since bounced back with dominant showings against Georgia and Vanderbilt.
Shutting down Missouri EDGE Zion Young on Saturday would continue to stabilize Proctor’s stock. That’s going to be easier said than done. Like Proctor, Young is a first-rounder on my board.
Young boasts an 87.4 PFF grade through the first five games, with 13 hurries and 21 pressures. Young is a 6-foot-5, 255-pound power end with 33-inch arm length and athleticism (projected 4.7-second 40). Proctor is a 366-pounder who squats 815 pounds, benches 535, and power cleans 405. This will be a power-on-power firefight.
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No. 7 Indiana at No. 3 Oregon | 2:30p CST | CBS
We have a titanic matchup on Saturday afternoon in Eugene between two top-10 undefeated programs. Both are off a bye following huge road wins. Two weeks ago, Indiana outlasted Iowa, and Oregon beat then-No. 3 Penn State.
The biggest subplot of this game is the matchup between top-10 projected quarterbacks—we’ll dive deeper into that below. But a subplot to the subplot is the expected rainy conditions in Eugene on Saturday, and what that could do to each team’s respective passing offenses.
Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza has thrown for 16 TDs, whereas Oregon’s No. 3-ranked pass defense has given up only two pass TD. Oregon’s Dante Moore-led offense is averaging over 50 PPG and has scored on all 23 trips into the red zone. But in this one, it goes up against a top-10 Indiana defense that has the No. 8-ranked pass defense.
Top prospects: Oregon QB Dante Moore and Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza
Mendoza and Moore—my QB2 and QB3 in the 2026 NFL Draft—currently sit beside one another inside the top-10 on my 2026 board.
Mendoza is off to a huge start for 5-0 Indiana. He’s posted a 16/1 TD/INT rate on 71.8% completions, with a career-best 79.3% adjusted accuracy mark despite throwing it further down the field than he ever has.
Oregon’s mandate in this game will be to push Mendoza off his spot and force him to make on-the-fly decisions without his throwing base under him. In 2025, Mendoza has been pushed off his spot to outside the pocket on only 9-of-145 dropbacks. Those nine plays featured two sacks and two near-interceptions. Mendoza went 1-for-7 on his attempts, and those nine plays generated, in sum, a mere one yard.
On the other side, Indiana’s defensive coaching staff is going to try to confuse the inexperienced Moore. Moore is coming off a national-coming-out-party performance against Penn State, where he posted an 85.7% adjusted accuracy percentage and 3/0 TD/INT rate in a double-OT win.
The stakes are huge for both of these teams. They also couldn’t be higher for the respective starting quarterbacks. The winning quarterback in this game will almost assuredly be the media’s consensus 2026 QB1 next week.
Best one-on-one matchup: Oregon TE Kenyon Sadiq vs. Indiana nickel Devan Boykin/S Amare Ferrell/Indiana LB corps
Sadiq, the No. 13 overall player on my big board, moves like a receiver and boasts an insane 41.5-inch vertical. Last year, Sadiq was stuck behind former Oregon TE Terrance Ferguson. The Ducks barely targeted Sadiq in the first three games against cupcakes, but it pumped him with seven targets last time out against Penn State.
We think that’s a harbinger that Oregon will fully unleash Sadiq in Big 10 play. We see a big game coming against the Hoosiers. Sadiq plays roughly half his snaps in-line, with a majority of the others coming in the slot, with a few snaps in the backfield and out wide sprinkled in each game.
Ferrell is predominantly Indiana’s deep safety, but he can find himself as an overhang defender lined up off the slot, depending on alignment. Sadiq will only run into him in one-on-one coverage if he draws one of those looks on a designed deep shot—presumably, this is the one Sadiq matchup that Oregon would avoid.
Ferrell is skilled in coverage and has the size (6’2/200) to compete downtown. Though the NFL’s scouting services didn’t grade Ferrell over the summer, he’s been a hot draft riser this fall.
Sadiq has a huge on-paper advantage in every other matchup he’ll see on Saturday. In the slot on normal alignments, he will see Indiana’s nickel Devan Boykin, who lacks size (5’10) and has a career PFF coverage grade in the mid-60s over five active seasons.
If I were Oregon, I would line up Sadiq more heavily in-line than normal on Saturday. That’s the most valuable spot for Sadiq’s elite run blocking. It’s also where he’s most likely to get isolated against Indiana LBs Aiden Fisher or Rolijah Hardy in coverage.
Those are Indiana’s only LBs with more than 100 coverage snaps, and both have PFF coverage grades under 60. The NFL saw Fisher as a late-rounder over the summer. But that’s because he’s a strong run defender—coverage has never been a strong suit.
One other bonus matchup I can’t wait to see: Indiana C Pat Coogan—the Notre Dame transfer—against war-daddy 330-pound Oregon DT A'Mauri Washington.
No. 6 Oklahoma at Texas | 2:30p CST | ABC
Top-10 Oklahoma against … the unranked Longhorns?! That’s going to take a little getting used to.
The biggest thing we’re watching in advance of this game is Oklahoma QB John Mateer’s status. Mateer underwent surgery on a broken bone in his throwing hand following the Auburn game and missed last week’s win over Kent State. His original recovery timeline was put around a month, which had us focused on the Oct. 18 game against South Carolina as his possible return.
But this week, reports have emerged that Mateer is ahead of schedule and actively pushing to start this game. That would obviously be a huge development for the undefeated Sooners, who rode Mateer’s 350 YPG of total offense to wins over Michigan and Auburn last month.
If Mateer can’t go, we’re going to see Michael Hawkins again. Oklahoma’s offense kept things vanilla against Kent State last week—Hawkins went 14-for-24 for 162, three TD, and zero INT.
Texas QB Arch Manning is now an afterthought for the 2026 NFL Draft. But his team could badly use the shot-in-the-arm of Manning’s best career performance on Saturday. Texas is on the brink at 3-2. The Longhorns’ next loss will eliminate them from the CFP.
Top prospects: Texas LB Anthony Hill Jr. and Oklahoma WR Deion Burks
Hill, my LB2, currently sits No. 22 overall on my big board. He’s a 6-foot-3, 235-pound high school track star with low-4.4s speed.
Hill is a sideline-to-sideline wrecking ball in run defense, and he’s incredible on the blitz. That latter skill is going to be utilized by Texas’ staff plenty on Saturday, whether it’s Mateer or Hawkins behind center for the Sooners.
The interesting thing to watch, in regard to Hill, will be his work in coverage if indeed Mateer can play. Mateer drags linebackers into conflict perhaps better than any other college quarterback—he’s a gifted scrambler with 4.4s speed himself who is capable of getting rid of the ball in a flash on the move from any arm angle.
If Mateer goes, Oklahoma will presumably ask Hill to do his best impression of Arvell Reese from Ohio State’s game against Washington QB Demond Williams—keep Mateer penned into the pocket by spying him, while simultaneously disrupting passing lanes.
Reese flipped the script on Williams—instead of Reese being the one in conflict, Williams found himself caged into a constricting pocket with few opportunities to unload the ball. That performance jump-started Reese’s meteoric rise. Hill matching it would be a very loud statement.
I see Oklahoma WR Deion Burks as a mid-rounder this spring. Burks is also eagerly awaiting a status update on Mateer. Burks and Mateer developed great chemistry in their first camp together, and Burks had 23 catches in four games with Mateer. Against Kent State, working with Hawkins, Burks had three touches for four total yards.
We didn’t see Burks targeted any behind the line of scrimmage—the manufactured touches he’s so good at—nor thrown to downfield. He’s converted half his targets 20+ yards downfield into catches in 2025.
Hawkins didn’t throw Burks the ball even 10 yards downfield once on Saturday. Some of that usage was assuredly due to the vanilla game plan with Texas on deck. But Hawkins struggled throwing down the field in 2024—so that part of Burks’ game is likely gone until we see Mater again.
Best one-on-one matchup: Texas OT Trevor Goosby vs. Oklahoma EDGE R Mason Thomas
Goosby is a Feldman Freak’s Lister with a 20 mph max speed on the GPS and a 1.44-second flying 10-yard sprint. Currently my OT3, Goosby checks in at No. 14 overall on my 2026 big board.
He’s one of this season’s fastest-rising offensive linemen after taking over Kelvin Banks’ old post on the blind side for the Longhorns. Last year, Goosby played roughly two full games of snaps at right tackle and roughly four at left tackle.
Goosby has been a bright spot on Texas’ inconsistent offense in 2025 now that he’s a full-time left tackle. He’s posted a sterling 79.5 PFF grade in a five-game sample that included high-profile matchups against Ohio State and Florida.
On Saturday, he’s going to see plenty of Oklahoma EDGE Mason Thomas. Thomas is one of the nation’s most gifted pass-rushers off the edge. After posting an 87.3 PFF pass-rushing grade in 2024 with 32 pressures, Thomas has a 90.5 grade in the same category with 12 pressures across five games in 2025.
Mason (6’2/249) lacks size and length (77 ½-inch wingspan). But he entered the season with a fourth-round grade from the NFL anyway due to his craftiness as a pass-rusher. He’s going to need it against the less-experienced Goosby, who has both the length and athleticism to make Saturday a long day for Thomas.
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