https://jetswire.usatoday.com/2020/...ollege-football-season-adam-gase-joe-douglas/ How will the Jets scout an uncertain college football season? Tyler Greenawalt 6 hours ago While the NFL trudges forward toward its 2020 season, the college football season looks a little less bright. That means scouting for the 2021 draft will be incredibly more difficult. Not only have multiple conferences either postponed or outright canceled their seasons, but a few top-tier prospects have also opted out of the season over concerns with the coronavirus pandemic and there is still a lot of uncertainty with team scouts’ ability to travel to watch games in the fall. This upcoming draft will be incredibly important for the Jets considering the bevy of picks they possess following the trades of Leonard Williams and Jamal Adams. In addition to their seven original picks, the Jets also have an extra pick in the first and third rounds from the Adams trade and an extra fifth-round pick from the Williams trade. There’s also a good chance the Jets draft in the top 10 thanks to a grueling schedule. So how will the Jets scout college prospects in one of the most uncertain seasons of all time? Adam Gase said the Jets still don’t know but have had a lot of discussions on the subject “They’re trying to figure out the best format, how to set it up, and then how we’ve got to go about doing their scouting process,” Gase said, according to The New York Daily News. “Is there something we can do different? Is there something that we can change our process to fit in with what’s going on? I know there’s a lot of discussions.” There’s a lot of ambiguity in Gase’s words, but it comes from a continued state of unpredictability. Major conferences like the Big 12, ACC and SEC still plan to play, but that could change. Teams still don’t know if they’ll even be allowed to travel or attend games this fall, or watch from home. The Jets already know they won’t see some high-profile prospects, either, like Miami pass rusher Gregory Rousseau and Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons. They opted out of the season already. They likely won’t see any more tape of Oregon offensive tackle Penei Sewell or Ohio State cornerback Shaun Wade after the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences postponed their seasons until at least the spring. Both are considered top-10 picks in 2021. ESPN’s Todd McShay predicted the Jets will select Wade eighth overall in his most recent mock draft. The one silver lining, according to Gase, is that teams are way ahead of schedule with scouting potential prospects because of all the extra time they’ve had to watch game footage this offseason. “They’ve had a lot of free time on their hands, so I think everybody’s kind of ahead of the game in the scouting world because there’s only so many times you can just kind of sit around not doing anything,” Gase said. “They start going after the film, next thing you know, they’ve got a lot of their year already accomplished because there’s no new film coming out.” Besides looking at game tape, the only thing the Jets can do is plan for any and all possible scenarios for this upcoming college season. “I think for us they’re going to keep going through their processes and trying to figure out what’s our next step. What are we going to do if there’s no football, what do we do? If we have so many games going on, what do we do?” Gase continued. “So, they’ve got to go through all those things.”
