Ole Miss LB Suntarine Perkins ranked among the top 50 prospects for 2026 NFL Draft
The 2025 college football season is still over two months away but the discussion for the 2026 NFL Draft is already underway and an Ole Miss player is once again involved.
Less than two months removed from this year’s NFL Draft the rankings and mock boards are being posted with the projected top candidates to hear their name called in Pittsburgh next April.
One of those players is Rebels linebacker Suntarine Perkins, which CBS Sports ranks as the 31st-best prospect for next year’s draft. He is the only Ole Miss player to make the list of the top 50 draft prospects.
Perkins is coming off a sophomore season where he played more than 200 snaps and tied Princely Umanmielen for the team-leading 10.5 sacks. He also finished with 60 tackles and is the second-leading returner in that category behind fellow linebacker T.J. Dottery’s 76 in 2024.
With a 17.8 percent pressure rate last season, Perkins boasts one of highest rates among off-ball linebackers. All of this is helping him earn a lot of preseason buzz as one of the top linebackers not just in the Southeastern Conference but throughout all of college football this year.
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“No. 1 is his athletic ability and his get-off,” Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding once said when describing Perkins’ game. “We move that guy around a lot, so they’ve always got to account for where he’s at.
“That’s a flexible position for us. He’s a rusher and a dropper, so they can’t always count on that guy coming. His versatility as a player really allows him to do really well at that spot.”
Early mock drafts have placed Perkins as a potential first round pick, which if that is the case would be the first time Ole Miss has first round draft picks in back-to-back seasons since the 2016 and 2017 NFL Drafts.
