While the NFL Draft isn't until next April, that never stops general managers, scouts and even fans from opining on what their teams will do in the spring.

It's the main reason why mock drafts exist and are created nearly a year in advance, because everyone is dying to know who their favorite team is going to select with their first round pick.

Of course, because it's the most important position on the field, the quarterback draws the most amount of eyes when it comes to the first round of the draft, and the 2027 edition is no exception.

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There are several draft-eligible signal callers who are generating plenty of buzz, but one expert thinks this might be the year to skip out on the position altogether if a team holds a top pick.

Brooks Austin has made a living studying college football film, so much so that he's earned the moniker "The Film Guy."

His YouTube channel, "The Film Guy Network," has over 135,000 subscribers, and he's recently parlayed that into a partnership with the college football media giant On3.

Suffice to say, Austin knows ball, so when I sat down with him to talk about the college game, and more specifically, the quarterback class for the 2027 NFL Draft, he gave a surprising assessment.

"Can I punt on the entire class," he asked, half jokingly.

As Austin points out, there are some solid quarterbacks in this class, but none are the "can't miss" prospects that would necessitate a top-five pick like in years past.

Most experts figured Oregon's Dante Moore would be the first QB off the board in '27, given he was already projected to go high last year before deciding to return to Eugene.

An injury might have derailed that for Moore, but as Austin points out, the injured Duck wasn't without some limitations of his own even before exiting for the season.

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"Dante Moore is a really good football player," he explains. "But (he) gets stuck on reads and makes his mind up pre-snap, and that scares me. He's also a little up and down, like from a fundamental standpoint, from a mechanics standpoint, he just kinda gets away with a lot of it in college football."

Moore wasn't the only one giving Austin some pause.

Ole Miss's Trinidad Chambliss, one of the preseason Heisman favorites, has had a fine season statistically, but his build makes Austin nervous about him at the next level.

"I love him, but there are some physical questions about that one as well, like, is he gonna work at his stature when we get to the league?"

Other quarterbacks like Texas' Arch Manning and LSU's Sam Leavitt get mentioned as well, with Austin stating question marks about their decision making and turnover problems.

The prospect who Austin believes should go number one overall shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who watches football on Saturday.

"If I had the number one overall pick, I'd draft Jeremiah Smith," Austin admits. "And then next year I try to find a quarterback."

Austin explains that Smith, the Ohio State wide receiver, is a "guarantee" and one of the only truly generational prospects we've seen in the game since Andrew Luck in 2012.

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"I would draft Smith, and I'd be like, 'I've got the best prospect and most known prospect that's come out of college football... since maybe like Andrew Luck,'" Austin claims. "I would just draft him if I was bad enough to be the number one overall pick."

To say that expectations were high at USC heading into the 2026 college football season would be an understatement.

The Trojans, especially head coach Lincoln Riley, were adamant that this year would be different than the recent disappointments. SC finished 9-3 in 2025, brought in the number one recruiting class in the country, added some talent at key positions in the transfer portal, and returned starting quarterback Jayden Maiava after a strong 2025. They hired former TCU head coach Gary Patterson to run the defense. In theory, the elements had finally come together to return the program to prominence. And they said as much.

"The time is now," the marketing campaign went. Riley gave interviews in the spring, including one to On3, where he said the administration got "serious" about competing at the highest levels of college football.

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"USC had to get really serious about being great in the sport again," he explained. " I give the school administration — everybody — credit. They have.

"Taking this over, you knew you had to go fight like hell just to try to get this window opened," Riley said. "And we’re at a point right now where there’s a lot to be excited about and a lot in front of us. It’s been a lot of work for a lot of people, a lot of commitment from a lot of people to get there, and it should be a lot of fun these next few years."

"We came here to win championships," he continued. " A lot of us have been fortunate enough to be a part of a lot of championships. We certainly didn’t come here for anything less. We’ve got to go buckle down and improve and really come together, but there’s the makings of a championship-level football team in that building right now."

Fast-forward to late-October, and they're anything but. After an inexcusable loss to Wisconsin this past weekend, USC is now 6-2 and unranked in the AP Poll. While they had a nice win over Penn State in a hostile "White Out" environment in Happy Valley, the Trojans lost at home to a very mediocre Oregon Ducks team playing a backup quarterback.

The seven points they scored against the Badgers on the road, after a bye week no less, represented the lowest point total of any Lincoln Riley-coached team. With a senior quarterback in his third season in the program and a very highly-paid offensive line. Naturally, the defense wasn't good enough to keep the game close. It never is.

The performance, the record, the mediocrity, the consistent underachievement ... all of it has led to rampant, and growingly serious, speculation that Riley's job is contingent on a strong finish to the season. Perfect timing to host Ohio State and go on the road to face Indiana.

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Part of the speculation is the assumption, or the observation, that Riley doesn't seem fully connected to the USC program. That he's ready to move on as much as the SC fanbase is ready to move on from him.

He addressed those questions and opinions at a news conference this week, saying that he's fully committed to staying in LA and that SC is where he belongs.

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"Listen, if I didn't want to be at this place, I wouldn't have come here in the first place. I've had plenty of opportunities to leave," Riley explained Tuesday afternoon. "This is where I want to be. This is the right place for me. I'm the right person to be here. And that's as honest and transparent as I can be with you guys.

"I love it here. I mean like I told you guys a lot of times — there's not many people in college football history that gave up what I gave up to come here," Riley said. "I don't care if it's 15 years down the line, that never should be taken lightly. It's certainly not taken lightly by me. I came here because I believe in this place and none of that has changed whatsoever."

That's an interesting way to put it, because it's not exactly clear what Riley "gave up" to come to SC. He got a huge raise in salary. He locked in a massive buyout, ensuring generational wealth no matter how well he coached. He went from living in Norman, Oklahoma, to a palatial $35 million mansion on top of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, acquired for him by USC. What was the big sacrifice he made? Theoretically losing favor with Oklahoma fans, but uh, you know, $100+ million can make up for some mean comments by anonymous message board accounts.

Riley said that he has a great relationship with USC's Athletic Director Jen Cohen, and said she's been a "huge part of the progress that we've made."

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Though again, it's not clear what progress he's referring to. USC went 11-1 in the regular season in his first year in LA, thanks in large part to Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams. They haven't won 10 games since, and have to win while playing three top-10 teams to do so in 2026.

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As for his demeanor, which can sometimes give off the impression he doesn't care, Riley addressed that too.

"When you're a head coach of a blue-blood school, you have to be ready to weather the storms, the overly positive or the overly negative," he said. "Typically, what I've learned from doing this for a few years, I haven't learned it all, but the truth typically lies somewhere in the middle. And that's typically where it's at even if you know that it's going to sensationalize. And so my job is to stay steady."

Well, that's all true. And all well and good. But when your team comes out lifeless for road game after road game, loses games it should win to programs like Minnesota, Maryland and Wisconsin, and struggles against Oregon or Notre Dame, it's reasonable to question. Watching what Curt Cignetti has done at Indiana, or even Bob Chesney in his first year at UCLA, it's easy to see why there's such disappointment in Riley's work at SC. There's little toughness, discipline, or consistency on the roster. And always another special teams mistake.

Riley might be committed to USC, but that's a two-way street. And Saturday's game, Ohio State playing with potentially a true freshman backup quarterback on the road, might be enough to end the Trojans' commitment to him. Baylor anyone?