With new Panini Senior Bowl leadership comes change.
The all-star game is highlighting some of the top prospects for the 2026 NFL Draft (April 23-25 in Pittsburgh) with its first ever Top 300, released on Wednesday. With executive director Drew Fabianich taking over for the departed Jim Nagy, this new take on a preseason watch list was capped at 300 players -- down from the whopping 859 on last year’s list.
Fabianich, the longtime national scout for the Dallas Cowboys, said the slimmed-down list of players to watch for the 2026 Senior Bowl is about mirroring the level of excellence the game has established.
"We're the premiere all-star game -- always have been, always will be -- and we should reflect the list accordingly," Fabianich told NFL.com. "One of our taglines at the Senior Bowl is 'Best of the best,' and that's how we approached putting it together.
"We're going to end up with about 145 players on the final roster. We want every player (in Mobile) to have a draftable grade. Why give (players) a false impression of their value by putting them on a list they probably don't belong on?"
Fabianich noted being among this initial group of 300 isn't a prerequisite for earning an invite to the game, and of course, things will change along the way. Players not on the list will play their way into Senior Bowl consideration.
"But these are the best players we've seen to this point," he said. "We spent a lot of time looking at these guys. Before I even took the job, our scouts ... had already seen 250 to 300 players.
"So we jumped in, narrowed it down to the best 300, and we'll go from there. It's a good list, and we're happy with it."
LSU leads all schools with the most prospects on the list (14). The Tigers are followed by Alabama (13), Ole Miss (10), Oklahoma (10) and Penn State (10).
Here are four things you need to know about this year's Top 300 for the Senior Bowl, which will be held in Mobile, Alabama, on Jan. 31, 2026, and broadcast live on NFL Network (2:30 p.m. ET).
1) SEC dominates the list.
The SEC has been the premiere college football conference in recent years when it comes to producing NFL talent. That isn't expected to change in the coming draft cycle.
More than one-third of the prospects on the list (109) are from SEC teams, outpacing every other conference by a significant amount. The Big Ten ranks second on the list with 68 prospects, followed by the ACC (53) and Big 12 (43).
Leading the way among SEC teams is LSU, with 14 prospects. In a nice bit of symmetry, the Tigers had seven players on each side of the ball featured, including QB Garrett Nussmeier and four of his receivers (Nic Anderson, Zavion Thomas, Barion Brown and Chris Hilton Jr.).
The transfer portal has ushered in more of a big-school presence at all-star games in recent years. That's also reflected in the Top 300, which features only 19 prospects from so-called "Group of Five" schools and only five players from the FCS level.
"You've seen the effect in the draft," Fabianich said, pointing to the fact that only 28 players from outside the "Power Four" schools and Notre Dame were drafted in 2025.
2) Underclassmen making an impact.
The 2024 Senior Bowl was the first time the all-star game was allowed to invite true underclassmen to attend. Previously, fourth-year juniors who had graduated in December were permitted, but that was it. It's a new game now.
"The underclassmen change the scope of the game dramatically," Fabianich said, "but it's also a fine line."
In the end, 53 underclassmen made the Top 300 this year. Fabianich understands that he won't make some people in college football happy by including certain players on the list, but he's confident in their evaluations.
"We're trying to find players good enough to play in our game, so we did our best to find the players who can play in our game now," he said. "The tape [drives] those evaluations, no matter what year they are."
One underclassman whom Fabianich singled out was Ohio State safety Caleb Downs, the younger brother of Colts WR Josh Downs. The Buckeyes' All-America junior has been in the national spotlight since high school as a five-star recruit, first starring as a freshman at Alabama.
"When we went vertically down the positions, to see who belonged, it didn't take too long to put [Downs] on there."
3) Quarterback class has a chance to be a strong one.
The Senior Bowl has set a pretty high quarterback bar in recent years.
Five quarterbacks at the 2025 game were drafted, including one first-round pick (Jaxson Dart), one second-rounder (Tyler Shough), two third-rounders (Jalen Milroe and Dillon Gabriel) and a sixth-rounder (Riley Leonard).
The 2024 Senior Bowl QB crop was also a strong one, featuring two first-round picks (Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix), fifth-rounder Spencer Rattler, sixth-rounder Joe Milton III and seventh-rounder Michael Pratt.
Can the 2026 game top those impressive showings?
"It's a good group," Fabianich said of the Top 300's 23 quarterbacks. "We have 18 of them right now [graded at Round 5 or better]. Five of them are (in the) top two rounds."
Fabianich wouldn't get specific about which quarterbacks earned what grades. But the list reflects a fascinating swath of passers -- some well-known, others less so.
Among college football's more accomplished passers are established players such as Clemson's Cade Klubnik, LSU's Garrett Nussmeier, Penn State's Drew Allar, South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers and Miami's Carson Beck.
Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia, whose lawsuit against the NCAA has a chance to change eligibility rules, and UCLA's Nico Iamaleava, who left Tennessee amid an NIL dispute, also made the cut.
Beck and Iamaleava lead a long list of transfer QBs that also includes Oklahoma's John Mateer, Louisville's Miller Moss, Indiana's Fernando Mendoza and Iowa's Mark Gronowski.
Interestingly, two Group of Five quarterbacks made the list in San Jose State's Walker Eget and Western Kentucky's Maverick McIvor. One Ivy Leaguer (Harvard's Jaden Craig) also made the cut.
"I like this year's class," Fabianich said. "I think they've got a chance to be as good as [the 2025 class]."
4) Depth at WR, good group at DT.
Fabianich broke down the Top 300 by position, offering his thoughts on the relative strengths and weaknesses of each heading into the 2025 college football season.
The Senior Bowl director said he believes the 2026 quarterback and running back classes are encouraging lots that could forecast to be as good as -- or even better than -- their 2025 counterparts. At wide receiver, he sees better depth, even if the higher-end options are a little lacking now.
"I like the numbers at receiver, and I think we'll end up with more (drafted in 2026), but we'll see about the guys at the top," he said.
Tight end was a strength in the 2025 draft, and it could be so again next year, per Fabianich. The offensive line looks solid on the whole, he said, perhaps featuring more depth inside than the 2025 crop, while containing fewer higher-end tackle prospects right now.
On defense, the class strength appears to reflect recent draft trends: stronger up front and at corner, but weaker at safety and linebacker.
The defensive tackle group is stout, Fabianich said, "especially among the nose tackles and the shades." And while the true defensive ends might look a little lean right now, Fabianich believes next year's edge rusher group looks "very strong."
Outside of Downs, it's harder to find blue-chip prospects at safety and linebacker. And if there's a small quibble at cornerback that Fabianich has, it's that there are a lot of prospects who fit the nickel mold, usually with smaller frames and shorter arms.
"It's a pretty good (CB) group, but you are seeing more and more of that nickel-type body there," Fabianich said, noting the dearth of longer, stronger prospects at the position.
