The Detroit Lions will have plenty of eyes on them Sunday when they face the Miami Dolphins at 1 p.m. EST, but the scouting work starts well before kickoff. With a loaded Week 10 slate on deck, NFL evaluators will be fanning out across college football to track the next wave of draft talent.
For Lions fans in Michigan, the timing makes the weekend even busier. Saturday brings the annual Battle for the Paul Bunyan Trophy between Michigan and Michigan State, a game that still carries plenty of weight even if the usual buildup is muted. The Spartans enter at 2-6, while Michigan sits at 5-3, but bragging rights are still on the line.
And with that in mind, here are five players Detroit should have firmly on its radar.
Trent Fraley is the easiest place to start, if only because the Lions already know the family tree. He’s the son of Detroit offensive line coach Hank Fraley, which gives the organization some built-in familiarity.
But this isn’t about name recognition alone. The younger Fraley earned FCS All-American honors at North Dakota State, where he started alongside Mason Miller, a former practice-squad mainstay for the Lions.
He transferred to Michigan State for his final season and now gets a chance to show what he can do in East Lansing, about 90 minutes from the Allen Park Performance Center and Ford Field.
The production has been strong enough to make this more than a sentimental watch. Fraley is currently in the top five on Pro Football Focus for overall center grades.
Through eight games for MSU, he has allowed just two pressures and one penalty. Michigan’s defensive front should give him one of his toughest tests yet.
With the Lions’ center room carrying the expiring contract of Juice Scruggs, there’s at least a clear path to a backup role behind Cade Mays. Michigan and Michigan State kick off at 7:30 p.m.
EST in the Big House.
Another in-state name worth tracking is Michigan cornerback Will Johnson. He hasn’t delivered the monster senior season many expected, but he still sits in the early Day 3 range of the draft for now. Against a Spartans receiver group that has struggled badly and may even be forced to start a true freshman, Johnson will have a chance to remind teams why he’s still so highly regarded.
At 6-foot-2, Johnson has the kind of frame teams covet on the outside. His season numbers are still solid: 173 yards allowed, one touchdown given up, and an interception to offset it.
The one blemish has been the flags. He has been penalized five times, the highest total of his college career.
If he has a rough outing against a limited Michigan State passing game, that would stand out. The Lions need help at corner, and they already doubled up on Michigan defenders in the last draft cycle.
Notre Dame’s matchup with Miami had the makings of one of the weekend’s best games, though some of the shine came off when Hurricanes receiver Malachi Toney was sidelined by a practice injury. Even so, the spotlight remains on Notre Dame corner Leonard Moore, who was pegged early in the season as a superstar and potential top-five pick.
Moore will be tasked with handling the No. 4 passing offense in the country, led by potential first-round quarterback Darian Mensah. He has drawn steady praise from analysts, coaches, and even opponents, including Pat Fitzgerald, who called him a player that “should be the top overall pick” before Notre Dame faced his Spartans in September.
Moore is the kind of prospect the Lions would have to pay an enormous price to land, and that’s exactly why he belongs on this list. The Irish host the Hurricanes at 7:30 p.m.
EST.
Utah’s undefeated start has been one of the stories of the season, and the Utes will put that perfect record on the line in their rivalry “Holy War” game against BYU. A big reason for their success has been Wayshawn Parker, who has emerged as one of the best backs in the country.
Parker, a third-year runner in his second season with Utah, ranks second among all college football rushers on PFF and has 726 yards, which sits just outside the top 25 nationally. He’s a compact 5-foot-10 back who makes defenders miss, with 39 failed attempts forced on the ground.
He’s dangerous as a receiver too, with 26 catches for 264 yards and 16 more missed tackle attempts created after the catch. Those numbers make him the top running back in college football by PFF’s grading system.
He may have pushed himself out of the range where Detroit would realistically pay to get him, but he’s still a player scouts will want to see up close.
Finally, there’s Makai Jackson, whose path has been anything but straightforward. He’s now at his fourth school in five seasons, starting with nearly 1,000 yards as a true freshman at St.
Francis (PA), then moving to Appalachian State, where he topped 1,100 yards and scored seven touchdowns over two seasons. Indiana brought him in next, but he was buried behind NFL Draft talent such as Omar Cooper Jr. and potential first-rounder Charlie Becker.
By the fifth game of the season, he was no longer on the Hoosier roster.
Jackson has since resurfaced at Liberty and made the most of the move. In the Flames’ 7-1 start, he has 626 yards on fewer than 30 catches, and his 21.6 yards per catch ranks sixth in the country.
Among more than 500 qualified receivers, he sits in the top 20 on PFF this season. He has done that in a limited passing attack, too, with just 173 passing snaps, a number outside the top 500 for receivers.
The talent is obvious, but the pre-draft conversation will also center on the mental side after he didn’t finish the 2025 season at Indiana. Liberty plays New Mexico State at 8 p.m.
EST.
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