Bryce Perkins, entering his senior season at UVA, seems to have all the right numbers, in terms of NFL potential.
He’s 6-foot-3. NFL teams like tall quarterbacks who can see over the offensive line.
Check.
He’s running back fast, clocking a 4.5 40, and running back big, weighing in at a solid 210.
Check. Check.
Arm? According to Pro Football Focus, Perkins had a 19/5 TD-to-INT ratio and an adjusted completion percentage of 80.3 percent on 279 clean dropbacks last season.
Which was best in the ACC in 2018. Yes, better than wunderkind Trevor Lawrence at Clemson, even.
Check.
And yet, Perkins is getting basically no love as a potential NFL guy after next year.
You’ve got a guy here who was one of two quarterbacks in the country in 2018 to throw for more than 2,600 yards and run for more than 900 – the other was the Heisman Trophy winner and the #1 pick in the NFL Draft, Kyler Murray.
I don’t see him going in any of the seven rounds in any of the mock drafts for 2020 that I’ve pored through in researching this piece.
The best I can find for Perkins is rankings near the bottom of the available quarterbacks in the 2020 draft class – 16th by Draft Scout, 17th by Draft Blaster.
There were 11 quarterbacks taken in the 2019 NFL Draft, in case you were wondering, like I was.
Perkins will be the reason UVA Football does whatever it does in 2019, and the expectations are high, Coastal Division championship high.
Maybe he just needs more exposure, which will come early, with the ‘Hoos helping launch the ACC Network in Week 1, going on the road to Notre Dame in September, playing a big-money game on Black Friday with Virginia Tech, likely with a bid to the ACC Championship Game on the line.
If he goes into those games, and the rest of the season, with an extra chip on his shoulder, from the lack of love from the NFL talent evaluators, so much the better.
Story by Chris Graham
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