Will DJ Uiagalelei get drafted into the NFL? A look at FSU star's eligibility
DJ Uiagalelei is facing what will be his last season in college football. The 23-year-old senior has played four seasons of college football and is about to start his fifth and final one with his third school.
Uiagalelei started his NCAA journey with the Clemson Tigers, where he was a starter for two seasons, leading them to winning records of 10-3 and 11-2 in 2021 and 2022, respectively. In 2023, he led the Oregon State Beavers to a winning, if not as impressive, record of 8-4.
Now he's back with a properly blue-blooded program at Florida State, looking to follow in the footsteps of Jordan Travis under coach Mike Norvell. This will be a key season for a player who was once considered to have first-round potential.
While his first season at Clemson ended with a positive record of 10-3, he completed just 55.6 passes of his passes, and although that improved to 62.1 percent in 2022, his yardage never got near the 3,000 mark.
He had a career-high 2,638 yards in the air in 2023, but his completion rate plummeted to 57.1 percent. That's why if he had been taken in the 2024 NFL Draft, he would have only been considered a fifth-round prospect. Uiagalelei has failed to live up to the five-star-recruit tag with which he entered college football.
Why didn't DJ Uiagalelei declare for the 2024 NFL Draft?
Regardless of his low stock for the past draft, there were some discussions about him possibly declaring. Uiagalelei himself admitted as much to the press months before the draft, saying that his return for a fifth and final season was never a forgone conclusion:
“For me, man, I was just worried about the season last year, yeah, obviously it was always a thought, maybe I go to the draft or I come back for another year. I had no clue until after the last game that we thought about it. I thought the best thing for me was to be able to hit the portal and play another year in college. So that was my thought on that last year.”
Instead, DJ Uiagalelei jumped into the transfer portal and went to Tallahassee. This again demonstrates how the transfer portal has given more flexibility to players, who now can move up more easily in college football. Being benched in your program, or ending up a starter at a lesser school, is no longer a death sentence for a a player's career.