Treydan Stukes CB Arizona |
NFL Draft Profile & Scouting Report
| Jersey: #2 ROLE: Slot/Nickel Zone CB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Updated: 04/10/2026 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Draft Year: 2026 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| FORTY time: 4.33 seconds (96%*) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Jersey: #2 | |
| ROLE: Slot/Nickel Zone CB | |
| Last Updated: 04/10/2026 | |
| Draft Year: 2026 | |
| Forty time: 4.33 seconds (96%*) | |
| Overall Rating: | 84.8 / 100 | |
|---|---|---|
| Average rating of opposition Offense player has faced | ||
| Offense Rating: |
|
72% |
| Click the links below to view how player ranks vs other prospects. | ||
| QB Rating When targeted: | 48.6 | |
| Tackling: |
|
77% |
| Run Defense: |
|
77% |
| Coverage: |
|
93% |
| Zone: |
|
90% |
| Man/Press: |
|
93% |
|
DRAFT PROJECTION:
3rd
Overall Rank:
#72
Position rank:
#15 (DB)
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| College Games: 52 College Snaps: 2674 | ||
| Player Comparison* (Similarity level) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Quinyon Mitchell - Toledo |
|
90% |
| Trey Amos - Ole Miss |
|
85% |
| T.J. Tampa - Iowa State |
|
82% |
Drafted: ROUND: 2 - Pick Number: 38 (LV)
Draft Profile: Bio
Treydan Stukes walked on at Arizona out of Millennium Park High School in Litchfield Park, Arizona with zero recruiting stars to his name. Nobody was knocking down the door for a kid from a small program in Goodyear, despite the fact that he intercepted 11 passes in his high school career and won a state championship in the triple jump. His father Ray played college ball at Pacific University and suited up in the Arena Football League, so competitiveness ran in the family, but the recruiting services missed entirely on Stukes. He arrived in Tucson in 2020 with something to prove and never stopped proving it.His trajectory at Arizona reads like a steady climb with one painful detour. After logging 66 snaps as a true freshman in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Stukes worked his way into five starts by 2021, tallying 31 tackles and a team-best seven pass breakups while helping the Wildcats hold opponents under 200 passing yards per game for the first time in over a decade. By 2022, he was a regular starter across 11 games with 42 tackles and an interception, playing primarily on the boundary. His breakout arrived in 2023: named a team captain as a redshirt junior, he started 12 of 13 games, made 55 tackles with nine pass breakups, earned Honorable Mention All-Pac-12, and was nominated for the Burlsworth Trophy, which honors college football's top player who began as a walk-on. He also helped anchor a defense that won seven straight to close the regular season, capping it with a win over No. 12 Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl.
Then came the setback. Four games into 2024, Stukes tore his ACL against Utah and missed the rest of the year. He took a medical redshirt and returned for a sixth season in 2025, missing the first two games while finishing his recovery. What he did in the 10 games that followed was remarkable. Operating primarily from the slot and occasionally rotating into safety responsibilities, Stukes posted 52 tackles, four interceptions, six pass breakups, and a sack while serving as the heartbeat of a Wildcats secondary that finished first nationally in pass efficiency defense and second in total interceptions. He picked off passes against ranked Iowa State, ranked BYU, Baylor, and Arizona State in the Territorial Cup. The honors piled up: AP Third Team All-American, Sporting News Second Team All-American, and First Team All-Big 12. Not bad for a kid nobody recruited.
Scouting Report: Strengths
- Terrific size for a nickel at 6'2", 195 pounds, giving him a physical advantage over most slot receivers at the catch point and in contested situations.
- Moves with surprising fluidity for his height; his hips don't betray him the way they do with most tall corners, and he can flip and run without losing ground.
- Outstanding zone coverage processor who reads the quarterback's eyes, picks up route combinations early, and triggers downhill before the ball arrives.
- Delivers a forceful two-handed jam at the line that knocks receivers off their stems and disrupts timing in the passing game from the first snap.
- Ball production speaks for itself: seven career interceptions, 21 pass breakups, and 207 targets faced with a career completion rate against him well under the national average.
- Blows up screens with frightening recognition speed; he sees the blocking pattern develop and attacks through stalk blockers before the catch is even made.
- Long-striding top-end speed allows him to recover on vertical routes and contest fades even when he gets a late jump off the line or bites on underneath fakes.
- Versatile special teams contributor with reps across kick return, kick coverage, punt return, punt coverage, and field goal block units, giving him immediate NFL roster value on day one.
Scouting Report: Weaknesses
- Will be 24 before his rookie season, and the torn ACL in 2024 means teams are buying a player under two years removed from significant knee surgery.
- Gets caught flat-footed and stacked vertically far too often; receivers with good stems can get on top of him because he commits his weight forward hunting the break.
- Lacks the short-area quickness and mirror ability to survive extended reps in press-man coverage against twitchy slot receivers who win with sharp lateral cuts.
- Takes poor pursuit angles in the run game, overcommitting to one gap and opening up wide lanes; his aggressiveness becomes a liability when he can't redirect.
- Struggles to consistently stack and shed blocks at the point of attack, lacking the play strength to anchor against bigger bodies in the run game.
Scouting Report: Summary
Stukes is not going to be the guy you line up on the boundary in press-man and ask to mirror Amon-Ra St. Brown on a five-yard option route. That is not his game, and any defensive coordinator who tries to force that round peg into a square hole is going to be disappointed. Where Stukes thrives, and where his NFL future lives, is as a zone-based nickel defender in a scheme that lets him play with his eyes on the quarterback and read route combinations from depth. Think Cover 3 or split-safety looks where he can sit in the slot, wall off intermediate crossers, and use his vision to jump throwing lanes. At Arizona, he played a ton of Cover 1 and Cover 3, and he also rotated into safety responsibilities in Cover 2, which tells you how much the coaching staff trusted his processing ability. That versatility across multiple alignments is valuable.The 2025 film is the best of his career and it's not close. After struggling with coverage consistency in 2022 and dealing with the ACL in 2024, Stukes came back and played at an entirely different level, surrendering zero touchdowns on 39 targets while snagging four interceptions. His recognition of screen plays and his willingness to detonate those concepts are traits that separate him from the crowd. He closes ground with real violence when he commits, and when he reads it right, the play is over. The missed tackle numbers came down significantly in his final season, and he finished enough one-on-one opportunities from the slot in run support to quiet concerns about his physicality in that area. The ball skills, the instincts, and the way he arrives at the catch point with his length extended are all traits that translate immediately.
The concerns are real, though, and they're why he sits where he sits on boards. The age, the knee, and the flat-footed tendencies against double moves are all legitimate flags. He bites on play-action and pump fakes, and when he guesses wrong, he can get stacked deep in a hurry. The burst is adequate, not explosive, and his speed turn needs polish. But the walk-on story, the leadership (captain as a junior), the production, and the consistent improvement year over year tell you this is a player who will outwork most of the room. In a nickel-heavy league where defenses spend the majority of their snaps in sub-packages, a 6'2" slot defender with his ball skills and zone instincts is going to find a role. He just needs a coaching staff that understands what he is and deploys him accordingly.
Treydan Stukes percentiles vs other Cornerbacks (NFL Combine historically - higher value represents better perfomance)
How other scouting services rate Treydan Stukes (Overall Rank)
All Scouts AverageOverall Rank
62.1
All Scouts AveragePosition Rank
16.0
*Percentile Ranking in Player's Position Group (NFL Combine Historical Data): This percentile reflects how a player's specific statistics rank
in comparison to historical performances at the NFL Combine, specifically within their position group. A higher percentile indicates a better performance.
For instance, being in the 90th percentile for a particular stat means the player outperformed 90% of their peers in that category.
*Similarity Percentage: This percentage is calculated based on a comprehensive analysis of various factors, including height, weight, 40-yard dash times, on-field performance statistics, and overall player rating. The analysis is conducted against our database of draft prospects from 2021 to 2023. This similarity score helps in evaluating how closely a current prospect aligns with past prospects. It is important to note, however, that this score reflects similarities based on college production and attributes, and does not account for eventual success or performance in the NFL.
*Similarity Percentage: This percentage is calculated based on a comprehensive analysis of various factors, including height, weight, 40-yard dash times, on-field performance statistics, and overall player rating. The analysis is conducted against our database of draft prospects from 2021 to 2023. This similarity score helps in evaluating how closely a current prospect aligns with past prospects. It is important to note, however, that this score reflects similarities based on college production and attributes, and does not account for eventual success or performance in the NFL.