Panini Senior Bowl Announces Top 300 Watchlist

MOBILE, ALA. – The Senior Bowl today announced its first-ever Top 300 list. The Senior Bowl scouting department, comprised entirely of former NFL scouts, has been hard at work since last February, evaluating over 2,000 prospects from all levels of college football. From that extensive and competitive process, the Senior Bowl Top 300 was composed. 

The Senior Bowl takes great pride in identifying and showcasing the “Best of the Best.” The results speak for themselves: 50% of the players selected in the top three rounds of the 2025 NFL Draft were Panini Senior Bowl participants. In keeping with that high standard, the Senior Bowl made a deliberate decision to be more selective, thus moving away from the 850 players featured on last year’s watchlist and narrowing the focus to a more exclusive group of 300. 

This list represents more than just a preseason acknowledgment; it reflects the highest standards in college football. Being named to the Senior Bowl Top 300 list is a meaningful honor and signals that the prospects on this list are viewed among the very best in the country. Only draft-eligible players are featured on this list.  

“We decided to trim our watchlist from 850 to 300 to raise the bar and truly spotlight the top-tier talent across the country,” says Senior Bowl Executive Director Drew Fabianich. “Our staff has been working rigorously to identify the top talent in this year’s draft class and the players on this list have stood out so far, but this is just the beginning. This season is the most valuable part of our process and there is still plenty of football to be played. Our scouts will be on the road every week, tracking how these players perform and who continues to rise.” 

The Senior Bowl Top 300 includes 109 players from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and 68 from the  Big Ten Conference—an intentional reflection of recent draft trends. In the 2025 NFL Draft, the SEC led all conferences with 79 selections, followed closely by the Big Ten with 71. The next closest was the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) with 42. One notable storyline from the 2025 draft was the sharp decline in selections from outside the Power Five. Just 28 players from Group of Five conferences and lower were drafted in 2025, down from 49 in 2023. That trend is echoed in the Senior Bowl Top 300, which features only 24 players from non–Power Five programs.  

The move from an 850-player watchlist to a Top 300 list highlights the 300 most promising prospects for this upcoming draft cycle. These 300 players are the Best of the Best in college right now, according to the Senior Bowl Scouting Department. However, this is just the beginning, and this season is the most important part of the evaluation process. Just because a player is listed on our Top 300 list does not guarantee him an invitation, nor if a player is not currently on our list does it mean he will not be evaluated with the same expertise and attention to detail as the players currently on this list. It is very much possible and likely that many players not on this list will earn an invitation to the Panini Senior Bowl depending on how well they perform this season. 

The Senior Bowl Top 300 features only players eligible for the 2026 NFL Draft. Of the 300 prospects selected, 54 are underclassmen. Due to the uncertainty surrounding underclassmen eligibility, the Senior Bowl remains cautious in its inclusion, only featuring those whom our scouting department believes are highly likely to declare for the 2026 NFL Draft following a successful regular season.

Senior Bowl Top 300 Breakdown 

• Total schools represented: 86 schools 
• Conference Breakdown: “Power 5” Schools 

o SEC: 109 players 

o Big 10: 68 players 

o ACC: 53 players 

o Big 12: 43 players 

• “Group of 5” Breakdown: 19 players 
• FCS Breakdown: 5 players 
• Total players from “Group of 5” and lower: 24 players 
• Most players represented: LSU (14) 
• 5 schools with 10 or more players represented: LSU (14), Alabama (13), Ole Miss (10), Oklahoma (10), Penn State (10) 
• Total Underclassmen: 54 players 

About Senior Bowl 

The Panini Senior Bowl is widely regarded as the preeminent college football all-star game and the first stage in the NFL Draft process. The longest continually running all-star game has taken place in Mobile, Alabama, for the past 76 years. More than 900 NFL personnel, including key decision-makers from all 32 teams, and over 1100 media members from around the country were credentialed this year. This past April, the game produced 106 total picks, representing 40 percent of the entire NFL draft. The 2026 Panini Senior Bowl will take place on Saturday, January 31, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. CT at South Alabama’s Hancock Whitney Stadium.

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