2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Christian Uphoff, S, Illinois State University
The Illinois State secondary is nasty. They lost Luther Kirk to the NFL last year but three of their four starters in the secondary are back and they are all very good. We already focused on Devin Taylor, now we are talking about Christian Uphoff and let’s be honest we could be talking about Charles Woods as well.
Right now I want to focus on the 6’3 safety prospect from Washington, Illinois. Uphoff is a special athlete, he is not only a staring safety, he has the ability to add help in Special Teams as a return man.
At Washington High School, Uphoff was a four year player who ranked 3 in career interceptions and 4 in career punt return yards at his school. He record 1,293 all-purpose yards in his senior year, while racking up 40 tackles and 5 interceptions.
In 2016, Uphoff would come to Illinois State and redshirt his first year.
As a redshirt freshman in 2017, Christian played in every game as a Special Teamer. As a rookie, he became the sixth player in ISU history to return a kickoff for 100 yards.
Check out NFL Draft Diamonds 2021 Small School Rankings
In 2018, Uphoff became an Honorable Mention player for the MVFC. He was a beast as a returner averaging 26.1 yards per return. He finished the season with 18 kickoff returns for 470 yards. He also , played safety racking up 18 tackles and had another pick.
Last season, Uphoff started every game at free safety. He finished the season with 70 tackles and two interceptions. Last year, he only had 286 yards on returns, but he only handled 12 returns averaging 23.8 yards per return.
NFL Draft Diamonds Scouting Notes:
When you look at Christian Uphoff, do not get carried away in statistics. For him you have to look at his film. The kid has great size at 6030 and he is athletic. He would be considered a huge safety with speed and ball skills. I expect a monstrous year in 2020 for Uphoff. I want to see him jump more routes on defense but last year many quarterbacks wanted to go underneath to avoid Kirk and Uphoff. We will see if they do that again this year. – Damond Talbot, NFL Draft Diamonds Owner
NFL Draft Diamonds was created to assist the underdogs playing the sport. We call them diamonds in the rough. My name is Damond Talbot, I have worked extremely hard to help hundreds of small school players over the past several years, and will continue my mission. We have several contributors on this site, and if they contribute their name and contact will be in the piece above. You can email me at nfldraftdiamonds@gmail.com