Utah State QB cited for marijuana possession; what will that do to his draft stock?

NFL-bound quarterback Jordan Love was among four Utah State athletes recently cited for possession of marijuana on Saturday, Dec. 14.

Love, junior WR Sean Carter, senior RB Gerold Bright and track and field athlete Elani Rice were charged with the misdemeanor, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Love recently announced that he was entering the 2020 NFL draft amid speculation that he might transfer to another school.

Regardless of how the situation plays out, it’s unlikely to have a major impact on his draft standing, as the league in recent years has focused more on serious and violent crimes. The Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman wrote about the topic in 2018. And Love is considered one of the better QB prospects in the 2020 NFL draft.

However, he’s not completely immune from taking at least a small hit to his draft stock. Take two of the more infamous cases from recent years as examples: Nebraska DE Randy Gregory and Ole Miss OT Laremy Tunsil.

Gregory failed a drug test at the 2015 Combine and openly admitted to teams and the media afterward that he had failed other drug tests in college, all for marijuana. Gregory went from a top-5 pick to a late second-round pick.

Likewise, Tunsil was famously busted right before the 2016 draft when a video of him wearing a gas mask while smoking a substance through a bong surfaced on his own Twitter account.

Who could forget this image?

Laremy Tunsil's Twitter account posted a video of him smoking a bong minutes before the NFL Draft 😳 pic.twitter.com/Ixb9VygMcj

— WORLDSTARHIPHOP (@WORLDSTAR) April 29, 2016

Tunsil still wound up going in the first round at pick No. 13 (of course) to Miami and has had a solid career thus far despite a trade to the Houston Texans earlier this season. However, it’s estimated that Tunsil lost at least $7 million by falling to No. 13, as he was projected to go much higher before the video came out.