Most Interesting Prospects: Iowa State wide receiver Jayden Higgins

Brian Gutekunst has a type at wide receiver. He wants fast, big-bodied receivers that Matt LaFleur can use to block in the run game. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. And if we’re going to talk about the most interesting receiver in this year’s class, I think we should go with the player that best embodies that type.

That player is Iowa State’s Jayden Higgins.

Initially, I described him as a bit like Allen Lazard, but I think that was misguided — mostly because I’m misremembering Lazard as being better than he was. Higgins surpasses him in every way.

To be sure, both were big pass catchers who played at Iowa State, but the comparisons should end there. Higgins glides where Lazard lumbered. Lazard was a tight end doing wide receiver things, while Higgins is a receiver through and through.

Thoroughly productive as a Cyclone, Higgins overcame bad quarterback play throughout his college career to put up 2166 yards on 140 career catches, scoring 15 touchdowns. To me, he looks like the best-case scenario for what Christian Watson might be after he recovers from his ACL injury: a player who’s clearly fast but doesn’t have to rely on just speed to win, leveraging good body control to maximize the still-prodigious athleticism he does have.

Along those lines, Jordy Nelson might be a better comp for Higgins than Lazard. Like Higgins, Nelson was big and fast (but not a track star) and had insane body control, contorting his frame to make ridiculous contested catches regularly. Athleticism was a part of his game, but not the defining feature, and I think that’s the case with Higgins — and Higgins is still a significantly better athlete than Nelson was.

So why is Higgins the most interesting receiver to me? It comes down to where you draft him.

When I did my data capture for this year’s class, Higgins was ranked 62nd on the consensus big board, a mid to late second-round pick by the consensus estimation. And it’s possible he could still go there, but I suspect his rating had more to do with the poor quarterbacks he played with throughout his career than any real lack of polish as a prospect.

I think in a generally poor wide receiver class, Higgins is going to go much higher than that, potentially in the very early second round or even late in the first. If someone wanted to have the option to tag a fifth-year option onto the contract of a promising young receiver, it wouldn’t at all be surprising to see someone grab him late in the first.

If the draft is all about projecting what a guy can be, taking Higgins in the first round seems like a pretty fair and solid projection. He has all the tools. Who will roll the dice on his ability to put them to use?