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Alabama’s Phidarian Mathis continues push up draft boards, plus notes on OU-Texas and USC

Matt Zenitzby:Matt Zenitz•10/08/21•

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Top 25 Senior Bowl prospects midway through college football season Chad Reuter
Courtesy of Alabama Athletics

One play after Alabama’s third touchdown against Ole Miss last Saturday, the outlook for the Rebels officially went from “Yeah, this isn’t going well” to “Wow, this is getting ugly.”

It was because of Crimson Tide defensive lineman Phidarian Mathis. His manhandling of Ole Miss tight end Chase Rogers and subsequent strip-sack of Rebels quarterback Matt Corral led to an Alabama fumble recovery and — four plays later — a touchdown that pushed the Crimson Tide’s lead to 28-0 shortly before halftime.

While Mathis doesn’t get nearly the attention of other top SEC defensive players (including teammates Will Anderson and Christian Harris), he continues to position himself to be Alabama’s latest early-round NFL defensive lineman.

Mathis entered the season with a Day 2 draft grade from National Football Scouting, one of the two scouting services used by NFL teams, and his play has further solidified him as one of the nation’s top interior defensive linemen in the eyes of NFL scouts.

Mathis ranks sixth among SEC defensive tackles in tackles (19), leads Alabama in sacks (3.5) and has been selected as one of the Tide coaching staff’s defensive players of the week after each of Alabama’s first two SEC games.

In the Tide’s first three games against Power Five opponents (Miami, Florida and Ole Miss), Mathis has 15 tackles and 2.5 sacks.

More of that caliber of play on Saturday would be helpful to Alabama (and Mathis’ draft stock) with the Tide set to face a Texas A&M offense that features one of the SEC’s top running back tandems in Isaiah Spiller and Devon Achane.

Oklahoma run defense will test Bijan Robinson

Each of Oklahoma’s first four FBS opponents (Tulane, Nebraska, West Virginia and Kansas State) have something in common: None of their starting running backs have been able to reach 60 yards or average even 4.0 yards per carry against the Sooners’ defense.

That’s worth keeping in mind heading into Saturday’s Red River Shootout.

The Sooners rank No. 7 nationally in rush defense (83.4 yards per game) and will provide a challenge for Texas star running back Bijan Robinson, who has run for at least 127 yards in each of the Longhorns’ past three games.

“Their front is very active,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian told reporters Thursday. “They’re deep. They’ve got good players — two and three levels deep. … They’re active. They penetrate. They create negative plays on early downs, which puts opponents in third-and-long type scenarios and they’re able to get off the field. Controlling the line of scrimmage is going to be big in this game and winning on first down is going to be big in this game.”

USC’s latest big-time wide receiver

It’s been six years since a USC wide receiver went in the first round of the NFL draft (Nelson Agholor 20th overall to Philadelphia in 2015). That may be on the verge of changing.

While the Trojans’ start to the season has been far from ideal — a 3-2 record and an early-season coaching change — one of the bright spots for USC has been the play of junior wide receiver Drake London.

London leads the nation with 48 catches and ranks first among Power 5 players with 134 receiving yards per game; that would be the third-highest Power 5 average since 2012.

His latest outing was a nine-catch, 130-yard, one-touchdown performance in USC’s 37-14 rout of Colorado last week. London, who has 30 more catches than anyone else on the Trojans’ roster, has posted at least nine catches and at least 130 receiving yards in four of the team’s first five games.