It doesn’t seem like there are many NFL Draft prospects who have seen a bigger rise up the charts than Tennessee cornerback Colton Hood over the last month. Hood ended the regular season as a middle-of-the-pack corner prospect, landing as Mel Kiper Jr.’s seventh-ranked cornerback in his big board rankings in early January.
Since then, though? It’s been nothing but a remarkable rise for the former Tennessee standout.
Hood is now fairly widely viewed as a first-round draft pick and is the third cornerback off the board in some of the top mock drafts around the industry. He also seemed to have upped his draft position with a strong showing at the Senior Bowl last week in Mobile, AL. NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah tagged Hood as the No. 12 pick and the 16th-best overall prospect last week.
ESPN is now getting in on the Colton Hood stock. In Matt Miller’s latest NFL mock draft from Monday morning, he’s got Hood going 13th overall to the Los Angeles Rams. Miller notes how Los Angeles could work on upgrading its secondary with this pick after getting torched by Seattle’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the NFC Championship last weekend.
“Hood showed why he could be a high Round 1 pick at the Senior Bowl with excellent timing, poise and half-turn technique,” Miller wrote. “He can be the Rams’ future CB1 and represent a philosophical shift in terms of team-building in the secondary.”
Lockdown rep by Colton Hood pic.twitter.com/q6eD8X5OzL
— Billy M (@BillyM_91) January 27, 2026
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Hood wasn’t the only Vol on Matt Miller’s first-round mock on Monday, and wasn’t even the higher pick between the former teammates. Miller has Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy going 11th overall to the Miami Dolphins.
McCoy missed the entire 2025 season as he recovered from a torn ACL that occurred in January 2025, but his 2024 tape is off the charts. McCoy was one of the best cornerbacks in the nation during his first year with Tennessee and was a catalyst for the Vols’ run to the College Football Playoffs. The question that surrounds McCoy is whether he’s healthy enough to warrant a high pick, but he seems to be a first-rounder nonetheless. And considering that his injury took place more than a year ago, optimism around the league seems to be fairly high.
“Players who sit out a season due to a torn ACL don’t typically get picked this high, but McCoy is worthy of being an exception,” Miller writes. “He produced elite tape in 2024 and would have been my top-ranked cornerback in the 2025 draft had he been eligible. McCoy’s injury happened last January during training, so he should be ready this spring. The 6-foot, 193-pound press corner did enough in his four-interception 2024 campaign to convince teams he’s the real deal.”
Right now, it looks like Tennessee will have one extremely likely first-round pick with Jermod McCoy and one probable first-round pick with Colton Hood. The only other player who could creep into that conversation is wide receiver Chris Brazzell, who was tagged as a projected late first-rounder by ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. on Jan. 21.
“Picking in this range makes it difficult to find impact wideouts, and Brazzell would be the sixth off the board (marking the 10th time this century that six or more wide receivers have gone in Round 1),” Kiper Jr. writes. “But he also has the skill set to be a standout in the pros. His 6-foot-5 frame, long arms, sure hands and great concentration make him a big-time target in the end zone and on contested balls. I also see the explosiveness to get out of his breaks and separate. Brazzell tallied 1,017 yards and nine touchdowns this past season.”
The 2026 NFL Draft will begin on Thursday, April 23. Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for more Tennessee draft coverage.
