Cole Payton rises from backup to NFL Draft prospect after breakout season

Cole Payton spent four seasons waiting behind Cam Miller, but one year as North Dakota State’s starter was enough to move him from afterthought to NFL prospect. Wearing No. 9 and serving as one of six captains for the 2025 season, the quarterback led a Bison offense that finished 12-1 and averaged 41.08 points per game, turning a single run as the full-time starter into real draft traction.

That is the appeal with Payton: he is not a long-time starter with a mile-wide résumé, but a late bloomer who used one opening to show enough traits for pro teams to keep digging. NCAA’s draft framing listed him among the top-three finalists for the 2025 Walter Payton Award and noted that Mel Kiper Jr. viewed him as his favorite quarterback prospect, while also projecting that he would not last past the fourth round. The draft pushed him into the fifth, but the interest never depended on volume alone. It came from a quarterback who stayed patient in a program built on efficient play and then made the most of his chance.

The measuring-stick moments backed up the tape. At the combine, Payton checked in at 6-foot-3 and 232 pounds, then ran a 4.56-second 40-yard dash. HERO Sports ranked that third among the quarterbacks who tested, and his numbers kept stacking up: a 40-inch vertical, a 10-foot-10 broad jump, a 7.12-second three-cone drill and a 4.36-second 20-yard shuttle. HERO Sports rated him the No. 3 FCS quarterback in its combine athleticism rankings, the kind of profile that gives evaluators a reason to bet on upside even when the starting sample is short.

His winter stretch only strengthened that case. Payton earned a Senior Bowl invitation, then was named Player of the Game at the all-star event in Mobile, Alabama, on Jan. 31, 2026. NDSU also listed him as a 2026 NFL Scouting Combine invitee, a 2026 Panini Senior Bowl participant, a 2025 Walter Payton Award finalist in third place and a 2025 Stats Perform FCS All-America selection. For a quarterback whose path began on the sideline, that is a rapid climb in status.

Payton fits the mold of the small-school quarterback teams often chase when they are looking past résumé length and toward traits, timing and system fit. He looks most attractive to an offense that values movement skills, play-action structure and quick decisions, the kind of quarterback room that can live with developmental edges if the athlete, poise and production point upward. North Dakota State has already shown what that pipeline can produce, and Payton followed it the same way so many Bison passers have before him: wait, win the job, then make one season count.