ESPN's new wide receiver projection piece labeled Miami receiver CJ Daniels as its "Day 3 sleeper" in the 2026 class. It's a notable tag for a player who spent six years in college football and bounced from Liberty to LSU to Miami.
ESPN's Matt Miller also slotted Daniels to the Las Vegas Raiders with the No. 208 overall pick in his new seven-round mock, which shows that Daniels could be a late-round value or priority depth option at the next level.
From Liberty breakout season to one final year at Miami
At Liberty, Daniels logged 11 catches for 220 yards and three touchdowns as a freshman in 2020, then put up 37 catches for 634 yards and seven scores in 2021, then battled injuries in 2022 before breaking out in 2023 with 55 catches for 1,067 yards and 10 touchdowns. That final Liberty season earned him second-team All-Conference USA honors.
Daniels then went to LSU where he caught 42 passes for 480 yards in 2024, but he did not score a touchdown and missed time with a nagging foot injury.
Daniels transferred to Miami and gave the Hurricanes a steady veteran target in 2025. He finished third on the team in catches with 50, third in receiving yards with 557 and second in touchdown catches with seven. Add it all together and Daniels closed his college career with 198 receptions, 2,996 yards and 28 touchdowns.
ESPN's model still sees a draftable player
The model, called Playmaker Score, is built from a statistical analysis of Division I receivers drafted from 1996 through 2022. It looks at a receiver's projected draft position from Scouts Inc., his peak season for receiving yards per team attempt, his peak season for touchdowns per team attempt, the difference between that peak touchdown rate and his most recent season, whether he is an underclassman or has exhausted eligibility, his rushing attempts per game during his peak receiving season and whether he shared the field with other draftable teammates.
For Daniels, the key piece is that ESPN's system values a player's peak season more than his most recent one. That helps him because his best statistical year came at Liberty in 2023, when he posted 1,067 yards and 10 touchdowns. But, in a way, it also hurts him.
"Daniels is an example of something we're going to need to study with the rise of players transferring from Group of 6 schools to Power 4 schools for a final year of eligibility. The Playmaker Score system finds that a player's peak season is more predictive than their most recent season, but what do we do when those two seasons are played at different levels?"Aaron Schatz
The model likes that he showed a high-end season in college, but it also recognizes his production changed when he moved up in competition level.
ESPN gave Daniels a Playmaker Score projection of 136.3 receiving yards per season over his first five NFL years, and compared him historically to Ty Montgomery II and Jalen Hurd. ESPN also mentioned that after six college seasons, Daniels probably does not offer much remaining growth potential.
Still, there is a reason he was chosen as the Day 3 sleeper. Daniels' secondary Playmaker Rating came in at 59.8%, which is how a receiver stacks up historically without factoring in projected draft position. Compared to all of the WR's headed to the NFL draft, that is actually a pretty good mark, considering he is projected as a Day 3 selection.
Players like Daniels often get squeezed by factors outside of college production, even when they have traits NFL teams can use. Daniels may not be one of the headline receivers in this class, but it looks like some evaluators still view him as draftable late.