This upcoming week, the 2025 NFL Combine begins at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and 329 draft hopefuls will be looking to improve their draft stock ahead of the Draft in Green Bay in late April.
Virginia Tech will have six former players attending the festivities in Indy since they last donned the Hokies uniform on Thanksgiving Weekend in a rout of Virginia to close out the season at 6-6 and become bowl-eligible. Since that weekend nearly three months ago, some had a really good week at the Reese's Senior Bowl last month in both the practices and games.
One player, however, has quickly been seeing his stock rise the last couple of months as teams start to zero in on what they are going to do in Green Bay in two months. In one NFL writer's latest mock draft, a former Virginia Tech star is quickly rising and projected to be a first-round pick at the opening of the draft.
Virginia Tech RB Bhayshul Tuten is a projected first-round draft in the latest CBS Sports mock draft as Combine riser
I've said it before and will say it again, one player who returned to Blacksburg for this past season and really saw his draft stock rise was running back Bhayhsul Tuten. The North Carolina A&T transfer finished off his second season with Virginia Tech rushing for almost 1,200 yards, 15 touchdowns, and averaging 6.9 yards a carry.
Chris Trapasso of CBS Sports released his latest mock draft tabbed "2025 NFL Mock Draft: Predicting NFL combine stars who will show out in Indianapolis, rise into the first round" and had Tuten rising in the first round, No. 22 to the Los Angeles Chargers under second-year head coach Jim Harbaugh. Here is what Trapasso said about Tuten,
"If there's a huge combine ahead for Tuten, he has dynamic enough film to be picked in Round 1. The Chargers get a young, bouncy rusher in the second year of the Jim Harbaugh era."
One of the things that made Tuten so good at Virginia Tech was his ability to break tackles and pick up a lot of yards after contact. He was tough to be brought down and nobody would agree more than Boston College who had trouble the last two years against him, after he committed to them in the portal before coming to Brent Pry.
The combine will be huge for not only Tuten, but the other five Hokies attending and it wouldn't be surprising to see Dorian Strong or Jaylin Lane raise their stock as well with a solid week.