As we stepped into week 4, the 2024 college football fever has reached full throttle! While there have been many show stealers, right now, the CFB fans are spoiled with some good running action going back-to-back. And that too all happened on the same day, September 21. Well, it can be called the ‘Running Riot’ Saturday. And who has been the talk of the town? There are not one, not two, but THREE highlight heisters:  Texas Longhorns QB Arch Manning, Colorado Buffaloes dual-threat Travis Hunter, and Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Nico Iamaleava. They obviously had to be their best. After all, their performance would hand them the keys to open the NFL Draft doors.

The latest member of the Manning legacy, Texas Longhorns QB Arch Manning has landed multiple gold stars from NFL legends. As he now fills as QB1 after Quinn Ewers’ injury, he did make his program proud in his heroic feat against UL Monroe on Saturday. Only 9 minutes into the first quarter, Manning threw a pass from the 30-yard line.

While most of the fans were sure that it would fail, the ball landed just the way it should have, in the hands of RB Jaydon Blue. These are a common sight in the NFL, but in college football, it’s rare. Manning is now the official “Rocket launcher” of CFB.

Now let’s shift focus to Buffs’ dual-threat Travis Hunter. The college football programs got a huge lesson from Hunter’s feat against the Baylors on Saturday. NEVER GIVE SPACE TO HUNTER. Or he will make the most use of it. On the third down, the two-way star had only a few inches gap but that too didn’t stop Hunter from walking past the Bears tackle. 

The next in line over whom the college football world is crushing on is Tennessee QB Iamaleava. On Saturday night, with only 14 seconds left in the first quarter, Iamaleava gave the Vols an early 10-3 lead. The QB found Dont’e Thornton Jr. over the middle of the field and threw the ball which was then taken up by Jr. who easily won the foot race to the end zone.

While in most of the cases, the QBs assisted with the passes, the NFL scouts have their eyes on them.   

CFB stars paving their path to NFL

For this season, Manning chose to stay with Steve Sarkisian’s squad as the backup QB. But luck treated him well as he now would get to start with the Longhorns. However, since the Texas QB is only 19 years old, he will be eligible for the 2026 NFL Draft. But Manning ensured that he built his NFL stocks early since scouts had already started to take notes from his performance. 

While Shedeur Sanders gets snubbed from the top-10 picks list in the 2025 NFL Draft, Hunter is the only one keeping Buffs dream alive. This season marks his last season in college football and the two-way star is believed to land early as the No.4 pick in next year’s draft. However, as per the Pro Football mock draft, Hunter will be the No.1 pick going to the Carolina Panthers. 

Like Arch Manning, Nico Iamaleava too will be eligible for the 2026 NFL Draft. But so what? The Tennessee QB is already hailed as the No.1 overall pick. Saturday was no less than hitting the jackpot for the college football fans who witnessed three NFL prospects unleashing back-to-back heroic feats. 

These college football stars did make noise in the NIL as well. In case you want to know more about how NIL works take a look at the Think Tank podcast with Dawg Sanders.