Joel Klatt details why he really likes Alabama CB Terrion Arnold in 2024 NFL Draft
When you think of the best cornerback prospects in the 2024 NFL Draft, Alabama’s Terrion Arnold comes to mind.
Not only is Arnold a top prospect at his position, but he’s one of the better defensive players overall. In fact, FS1‘s Joel Klatt went as far to rank Arnold as his fifth-best defensive prospect, regardless of position.
“So, Terrion was recruited as a five-star safety [and] didn’t get on the field as a freshman,” Klatt said on his podcast earlier this week. “Then he comes out, all he did last year — freshman All-American. This year, first-team All-American. The dude can play. Now, Kool-Aid McKinstry is going to get or got the bulk of the press at Alabama, [but] Arnold is the better player.
“Five interceptions, so great ball skills. That tied for the SEC lead. The fact that he only played for two years and is this good… I think it’s very easy to say that his best football is ahead of him. There’s no way that this guy has peaked. Only playing two years in college, like, you can go and have a career where you have major upside, major potential. I think he is a pretty high floor, very high ceiling type of player in evaluation. I really like him.”
Arnold broke out in a big way in 2023, becoming one of the stars of the Crimson Tide’s defense. He tallied 63 tackles (40 solo), 6.5 tackles for loss, five interceptions and 12 passes defended. Arnold earned first-team All-SEC and All-American honors.
Joel Klatt explains why Quinyon Mitchell ranks ahead of Terrion Arnold in CB rankings
Arnold’s talent and athleticism was on display at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis earlier this month, in which he earned the third-highest grade of any cornerback. At 6-foot-0 and 189 pounds, Arnold ran a 4.50 in the 40-yard dash, a 1.54 10-yard split and had a vertical of 37 inches.
While Klatt likes Arnold enough to put him in his top-five defenders list, he has him as the second-best cornerback in this year’s draft, only behind Toledo’s Quinyon Mitchell.
“This is the guy I wanted to compare Arnold to,” Klatt said. “He’s the guy that I’m trying to break ties within this whole process. These two guys are my top-two corners. I want to go with Arnold because he’s a big-conference player, he played in the SEC and saw better competition on a weekly basis. And yet, Mitchell out-tested him at the combine and showed up at the Senior Bowl and was lights out, and that’s great competition. So, that put at ease some of those concerns I had about where he played.
“If Mitchell does get selected in the first 15 picks, and I think there’s a good chance he does, he will be the first Mid-American Conference defensive player to do that since Khalil Mack back in 2014. You couple the way he tested, the way he played at the Senior Bowl, and the fact we’ve seen guys like Mack and Sauce Gardner who played at Group of 5 schools, tells me it can happen.”