South Carolina Football: Xavier Legette called top receiver in NFL Draft by former NFL scout

South Carolina football product Xavier Legette is one of the most talented receivers in the 2024 NFL Draft. The Mullins, South Carolina native has not always been viewed this way, though, as it took a fifth-year breakout from Legette to make his way to prominent draft status. However, that is water under the bridge now as XL is a consensus top-10 wideout in this year's draft class.

One former NFL scout believes he's even better than that.

Firstroundmock.com's Daniel Kelly, a former NFL scout with the New York Jets, ranks the talented wide receiver as the #1 player at his position heading into this April's draft.

Kelly says that he is not concerned about the height discrepancy between his listed size at South Carolina (6'3") and how he measured at the Senior Bowl (6'1"). Instead, he says that Legette's game tape is elite. How elite does Kelly think Legette could be? Well, the long-time NFL scout says that his film looks like Jerry Rice. That's no small compliment.

Kelly argues that Legette's "Rice-ness" comes in how smooth he is as a route-runner and how easily he accelerates with the ball in his hands. However, like Rice, he also has the ability to high point the football like players much taller than he is.

Legette has elite speed and should run in the low 4.3s at the NFL Combine. He also is a thick-bodied player, weighing around 225 pounds. If he can adapt well to the professional game, he is talented enough to stick in the league for a long time as a player who can impact games in many ways from the wide receiver position.

If Legette is taken in the top-50 picks (a very real possibility), he will be the highest South Carolina football player taken since Jaycee Horn in 2021 (8th overall).