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Declaring a player will be the top draft prospect at his specific position before his final college season is typically a dangerous game. Like the NFL, the college football world spins at a torrid pace, and reputations often don’t stick for anointed youngsters.
But essentially guaranteeing Derek Stingley Jr. will be the consensus CB1 in the 2022 draft class feels safe. He’s been that good for that long at LSU, and the recently turned 21-year-old’s physical attributes appear to be off the Mockdraftable charts.
Stingley was the No. 1 cornerback recruit in the country and No. 3 overall player in the 2019 high school class, per 247 Sports. He then had an Adrian Petersonian true freshman season with the Tigers, a legendary debut on LSU’s dominant national-title winning squadron. Stingley was fully prepared for the gauntlet of dynamic offensive talent that annually resides in the SEC — and the College Football Playoff — with 15 pass breakups and six interceptions as an 18 year old.
That season was so phenomenally sticky that the consensus opinion on Stingley’s coverage abilities and NFL upside didn’t budge after a five pass-breakup, zero-pick 2020 in seven games for the Tigers.
And the genetics in the Stingley family are robust. Derek’s dad played in the Arena Football League. His grandpa, Darryl, was a first-round pick by the Patriots in 1973.
At 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, Stingley was built to play on the perimeter in today’s NFL. He’s long, hyper-fluid when changing directions, and scary explosive with recovery speed cornerbacks dream of, all of which make him a magnet for the football.
He’s ultra physical too. Check how he squeezed Kyle Pitts essentially out of bounds to force an incompletion on this vertical route.
And that win down the boundary is all over Stingley’s film. Here’s an almost identical rep against another NFL receiver, Broncos 2021 sixth-round pick Seth Williams.
Considering Stingley was playing against high school wideouts the season before this play, it’s almost unfathomable the 6-3, 211-pound Williams couldn’t get back inside to make a play on the football.
My favorite Stingley pass breakup came on yet another future NFL pass catcher, Texas’ Collin Johnson (Jaguars, fifth round, 2020).
It demonstrates the full arsenal at the cornerback position. Effortless, explosive hip flip and turn, stays in phase down the field, absorbs the push off, regroups, finds the football, and extends with one arm to knock away the football without bodying the receiver.
That is Pro Bowl cornerback caliber awareness. When scouting cornerbacks, I’m not just tracking pass breakups, although I believe ball production is vital. I note where the cornerback is in relation to the receiver on catches he allows. Is he off the screen? Or in the pocket of the wideout battling to the ground?
Stingley’s losses are awe-inspiring. The receptions he allowed in 2019 were still amazing displays of sticky coverage.
Alabama’s Devonta Smith beat him for two out-of-the-ordinary touchdowns — one when Stingley thought an audible was occurring at the line and another when his feet got tangled in Smith’s with the ball in the air. On this throw across the field, check out how Stingley battled the entire play to increase the catch’s degree of difficulty against the future Heisman winner.
Stingley did get some help from that teammate bump midway through the route, but recovering on that deep over and timing his attempt at batting the pass down were exquisite. No one could cover Smith in the SEC. Stingley gave him everything he could handle as a true freshman.
How about this “loss” against Pitts down the seam.
Those type of clearly contested reps are as much a staple of Stingley’s film as the outstanding pass breakups or dazzling interceptions. Like this one on a pass from, yep, another NFL player, Utah State’s Jordan Love. You know, the quarterback the Packers drafted in the first round of 2020 to be the heir apparent to Aaron Rodgers.
And the football gods carefully planned Stingley’s story to unfold at LSU. He went to high school seven miles from LSU’s Baton Rouge campus in Louisiana, where he had 27 career interceptions.
Stingley proved in that sparkling true freshman season he has all it takes to be picked early in the first round whenever he enters the NFL draft. There are no athletic limits to his game. He’s aware well beyond his years and has already produced like a first-round pick.
In fact, predicting Stingley to land inside the Top 5 doesn’t feel risky at all.