Shedeur Sanders draft slide: College football coaches react to 5th round pick

College football coaches, anonymously, reacted to Shedeur Sanders’ NFL Draft slide to the fifth round. Safe to say, they were stunned.

Sanders was eventually selected by the Cleveland Browns, even after they picked former Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel in the third round. But once Sanders started slipping, it turned from stunning to little surprise. 

“I was shocked,” a Big 12 coach said, via ESPN. “You never know what the interview process, how that went. I thought besides Cam [Ward], he was the second-[best] guy.”

Another Big 12 coach pondered if Sanders slipped far because at a certain point, you don’t want a distraction in the form of a later round pick. There’s no doubt the former Colorado signal caller carries a lot of star power.

“[The NFL teams] probably figure, once it gets to this point, is it even worth dealing with anymore, but there’s no way around that,” a Big 12 coach said. “… If you’re not drafting the guy to be your starter, it really doesn’t matter where you pick the guy.”

He wasn’t the only anonymous coach to have that type of thought. Well, the cat’s out of the bag now regarding Sanders.

“If you’re Tampa and you’ve got Baker Mayfield, do you want the noise associated with [Sanders] being your backup quarterback,” a Group of Five coach said. “There’s a lot of teams that don’t need quarterbacks.”

There were some concerns about Sanders being brought in as a backup, rather than the developing franchise quarterback. It’s a crowded room, so who’s making who better?

“I see him competing hard on the grass, trying to win the job, making the team better,” a coach who faced Colorado in 2024 said, “But making that room better?”

There were also questions about Sanders’ demeanor. Whether that stemmed from the reported combine interviews or how he operates, remains to be seen.

“People have taken a lot worse,” an SEC defensive assistant said in terms of players with questions. So, it seems like Sanders’ value might actually be higher than a normal fifth round pick.

Some just questioned if Sanders was a first round pick, not a guy that deserved to slide. There was no reason he shouldn’t have gone in rounds two or three.

“He’s got a bigger, stronger body, he does a great job of extending things, got the crap beat out of him with a subpar [offensive] line,” a Big 12 coach said. “But how many times did he make a rhythm-and-timing throw in a window? It’s either quick stuff out to the boundary or extended plays that he could get the ball deep. That would have been my question: Is he completely there enough to be a first-round pick? That doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons he shouldn’t have gone second through fourth.”