Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy hasn’t been seen on an in-game football field since the Volunteers’ College Football Playoffs loss to Ohio State in December 2024. Still, though, he’s been projected as a first-round draft pick in this month’s NFL Draft despite tearing his ACL in January 2025 and missing the entire next season. McCoy’s value is proven with his excellent game tape, but the opinions appear to be widely varied about his ability to play right away next year.
The Dallas Cowboys have been a frequent mock draft destination for McCoy. He’s a Texas native, he’s in the Cowboys range at No. 12 and No. 20, and Dallas is in dire need of help in the secondary. But while mock draft experts love slotting him to his home state team, there’s a feeling in the air that Dallas may not be all that interested.
Back in February, team owner Jerry Jones stated that with the team’s improve-now mentality, it won’t bother taking a player that will need a “redshirt” season to recover from injury. While McCoy would be a good fit in Dallas if healthy, there’s no way to know on the surface whether he will need to miss some time or not. That factor has complicated the issue of projecting McCoy to Dallas.
105.3 The Fan (Dallas, TX) radio hosts Kevin Hageland and Cory Mageors interviewed Cowboys EVP Stephen Jones on Tuesday with a variety of questions about next weekend’s draft. One of their questions was specifically about McCoy, and whether or not the former Vol qualifies as a redshirt project or someone who has cleared the injury hurdle for the Cowboys’ scouts.
Perhaps Jones was playing coy, but he did not outright say that McCoy had cleared that hurdle for the team. Instead, he used a lot of words to say that the evaluation process was still going on.
“Yeah, that’s a work in progress,” Stephen Jones said. “We’re trying to, you know, do all the work that we need to do to get our hands around what his status will be before we start with everything. What his status is for the mini camp, what is status is for the training camp, and then, ultimately, will he be able to play part of the season? None of the season? All those are levels that then we put in an equation and decide on where we might come down on that particular player.”
Again, there’s a chance that Jones isn’t trying to reveal the Cowboys’ hand too early. But he also had every chance to say that McCoy cleared the hurdle in their books. Combined with the Cowboys’ no redshirts policy, it feels like the chances that Dallas takes McCoy with the 12th overall pick are lower than they once were.
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Hageland and Mageors then asked Jones a follow-up question about how much missing an entire season might impact the team’s approach with a player.
“No, this happens,” Jones said. “And there’s been a lot of players in this league that miss a year due to injury that really come back and have great careers. So, I don’t know that that’s a deciding factor. I think, obviously, if you miss the entire year this year or missed the back half of the year but it’s going to linger in a big part of our coming season, then that’s probably a bigger factor than somebody who just missed last year but is already ready to go and start mini camp.”
But while McCoy might not be at the top of the Cowboys’ list, he’s not the only former Tennessee player that Dallas could be interested in. Tennessee cornerback Colton Hood, who played as the Vols’ No. 1 corner in 2025 in McCoy’s absence, has been talked about as a player worth watching for the Cowboys’ pick at No. 20.
McCoy put together a strong season in Knoxville during his lone year with the Vols, and has been shooting up draft boards with solid showings at the Senior Bowl, the NFL Combine, and Tennessee Pro Day. Multiple mock drafts have also linked Hood as a player that Dallas could draft with the 20th overall pick.
Mel Kiper Jr.’s latest mock draft for ESPN has McCoy going 24th overall to the Cleveland Browns and Hood going 29th overall to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Cowboys aren’t in play for either player, with a projected trade up to No. 6 and losing both No. 12 and No. 20 in the process.
The 2026 NFL Draft will begin on April 23 in Pittsburgh, PA.
