Entering the 2025 college football season, Auburn defensive end Keldric Faulk was viewed as a potential top-10 pick. Faulk was coming off a superb 2024 season as he totaled seven sacks, 45 tackles, and one forced fumble. At 6-foot-6, 270 pounds, Faulk has excellent height and length to go along with speed and strength. However, Faulk did not have a big 2025 season as the Auburn team struggled as a whole, and the coaching staff was fired. Faulk had 29 tackles with two sacks and three passes batted. After surveying sources at a handful of teams, they still see Faulk as a first-rounder and think he will start quickly in his pro career, but the majority of them see him as a mid-to-late first-round pick.
“He will still go (in the first),” said an NFC director of player personnel. “There was hope that he could’ve popped into a top 5-10 pick with a big year, but I think he will still most likely go top 20 or so.”
Going in the top 20 was a little high, according to an NFC general manager, “(Top-20) is a little high from our grades, but I do like him quite a bit. He will play and play early. He would be good anywhere, just got to play him right.”
In speaking to sources who were with Faulk at Auburn, they said that Faulk was hurt in 2025 by the Tigers’ scheme. They had Faulk playing more two-gap and not letting him go after the quarterback. They also said that Faulk is a great kid who works hard, loves football, and will interview well. Those intangibles could help Faulk rise in the lead-up to the draft. In my latest 2026 NFL Mock Draft, I have Faulk going in the back half of the first, and it sounds like he is very safe to be an opening night pick of the 2026 NFL draft.
