What college does Darrell Jackson Jr. play for?

No verified pre-draft news items in the past 30 days for this prospect. See Day 2/3 Team Fits below for projected landing spots and /news.html for the cross-prospect timeline.

Scouting Nugget: ACC

Expanded bio coming soon. This prospect is Interior D #9 in the 2026 class.

Background

Florida State IDL from Columbia, SC; Maryland transfer who followed Mike Norvell's recruiting.

College Production

2024 FSU: 32 tackles, 8 TFL, 3 sacks. 2025: regressed amid FSU's struggle.

Scouting Take

6-4, 325 with power rush ability. Motor dips in long drives; pass-rush plan still raw.

Draft Projection

Round 3. 3-tech rotational starter.

Sources

Our scouting profile is assembled from these primary sources + cross-checked against ESPN (Kiper / Reid / Miller), PFF's 2026 Big Board, Dane Brugler's The Beast 2026, and Daniel Jeremiah's top-50. See our full methodology and citations.

Day 2 / Day 3 Team Fits

NFL teams that lost a same-position veteran this offseason — and could target Darrell Jackson Jr. as a Day 2/3 replacement option.

REPORTED Las Vegas Raiders: moved on from Bilal Nichols (3-tech-DT).
Picks held: R1 #1; R2 #36

Confidence: "VERIFIED" departures cite a publication URL (Spotrac, OverTheCap, ESPN, NFL.com, team transactions page) confirming the move and date. "REPORTED" entries come from public free-agency trackers without a single canonical source we could attach. Fits are archetype-and-position based; we are not claiming the team has expressed interest in the prospect.

NFL Scheme Fit

0-tech / 1-tech NT in 3-4 or 4-3 base
Baltimore Ravens · Pittsburgh Steelers · San Francisco 49ers

Scheme matches are bucketed from the prospect's height, weight, and (for WRs) archetype tag against a static lookup of which NFL teams currently run each scheme family.

Rookie Contract & Landing-Spot Outlook

Projected Rookie Contract Value

~$5.0M – $8.0M (4-year deal) · Pick range: #65-96 · ~50% guaranteed

Mid-pick band — guarantee % varies pick-to-pick

Best-Case / Worst-Case Landing Spot

BEST CASE: Baltimore Ravens · R3 pick
Why: IDL listed in their top-5 positional needs; runs a scheme that maximizes his profile.
Year-1 arc: Day-1 starter window with cap-controlled rookie-contract production.

WORST CASE: New York Jets · R3 pick
Why: IDL not in their stated top-5 needs; runs a scheme that doesn't naturally amplify his profile.
Year-1 arc: Depth-chart competition + special-teams reps as Year-1 baseline.

Contract band uses the 2026 NFL CBA rookie wage scale projected from the prospect's expected pick range; guarantee % is the slot-default at that pick. Landing-spot best/worst case is derived from TEAMS data (positional needs + scheme overlap minus same-position R1 conflicts) — not a claim that either team has expressed interest.

Versatility, Limits & Roster Pathway

Position Versatility & Alternative Roles

Pure 0-/1-tech NT — 320+ lbs profiles as a true nose tackle in a 3-4 or run-down 1-tech in a 4-3.

Derived from height/weight against the 2026 position cohort and the prospect's projected round. Versatility callouts identify alternate alignments NFL teams have historically used for similar size profiles. Limiting-trait notes flag the single most-cited measurable concern; severity reflects how often that flag ends a Day 1 starter projection. Roster-pathway notes describe the realistic Year 1 NFL role for Day 3 picks.

By the Numbers — 2026 Class Context

Frame: Among 2026 IDL prospects, his 6-4 / 325 lbs frame sits at the 87th percentile in height and 97th percentile in weight.
Position class: Darrell Jackson Jr. is IDL #9 of 31 ranked IDLs in the 2026 class. Of those, 3 are projected in the R3 range.
School pipeline: One of 5 Florida State prospects in the 2026 NFL Draft — but the only IDL.

Computed factually from the 2026 prospect class roster — height/weight percentiles benchmark this player against every other ranked prospect at the same position. Recruiting arc compares his high-school 247Sports/Rivals composite to his current projected round.