TUCSON, Ariz. – Arizona Football has earned 11 Reese's Senior Bowl preseason watch list members including Gunner Maldonado, Quali Conley, Treydan Stukes, Tre Smith, Tyler Loop, Chubba Ma'ae, Jonah Savaiinaea, Justin Flowe, Jacob Manu, Tacario Davis, and Tetairoa McMillan, as announced today by the organization.
 
The Wildcats feature a litany of returning stars from a team that won 10 games for the fourth time in program history in 2023. Maldonado, Stukes, Loop, Savaiinaea, Flowe, Manu, Davis, and McMillan make up the returners honored by the Senior Bowl on this watch list.
 
Experienced newcomers Conley, Smith, and Ma'ae joined the Wildcats before the 2024 season and carry with them years of experience in FBS and FCS football and have been selected to the Reese's Senior Bowl watch list.
 
Arizona in total earned 11 and the Big 12 had 118 total players picked to the Senior Bowl watch list, marking the fourth most for a conference this year.
 
This year's 12^th annual list is comprised of a record 859 prospects.  This total number is up significantly from past years due to the new addition of specialists and underclassmen, as well as the inclusion of many fifth and sixth-year seniors opting to use their extra Covid year of eligibility.  All the prospects were evaluated by our staff and tape-based grades were also logged on hundreds of other senior prospects who ultimately did not make the list.
 
Per last November's ruling by the National Football League, all college players three years removed from high school are now eligible to enter the NFL Draft and thus, for the first time ever, the Watchlist includes 81 underclassmen our staff has identified as potential early-out draft prospects.  Our longstanding relationships with college coaches is critical to us so we were intentionally very selective with what juniors were included on the list.  Rather than use this new rule as an easy excuse to cast a wide net, we tried our best to communicate with college coaching staffs about the underclassmen they realistically felt might have an opportunity to leave early.
 
It takes professional evaluators to identify future professional players and this year's Senior Bowl staff will be comprised of 11 regional scouts with over 200 years of NFL experience.  Our staff will rely on decades worth of relationships at the college and NFL levels to stay on top of all the risers, career backup late-bloomers, and transfers taking advantage of opportunities in their final seasons.
 
One of our goals each year is to get live game exposures on as many prospects as possible so our Senior Bowl scouts will be in virtually every FBS and many small-school stadiums this college season.  Last year, our staff saw all but two (out of 139) prospects in-person who ended up on the American and National rosters in February.
 
It is important to note that this initial Watchlist is just a starting point for us.  2024 tape will be the most critical criteria in our selection process and all draft eligible players will be re-evaluated based on their tape this fall.  We know how hard the players all have worked since last season, so we owe it to them to stay open-minded and exhaustive in our process.  For reference, seven position players, including a pair of third rounders (USC RB Marshawn Lloyd and Boston College CB Elijah Jones), not included in last year's Watchlist ended up playing in last year's Reese's Senior Bowl.
 
About Reese's Senior Bowl:
The Reese's Senior Bowl is widely regarded as the preeminent college football all-star game and the first stage in the NFL Draft process. The longest continual-running all-star game has taken place in Mobile, Alabama the past 75 years.  More than 900 NFL personnel, including key decision-makers from all 32 teams, and over 1100 media members from around the country were credentialed this year. This past April, the game produced 110 total picks, representing 43 percent of the entire NFL draft.