Mateen Ibirogba is a defensive tackle from Wake Forest who is ranked No. 43 on my NFL Draft Top 100 Big Board. This comprehensive scouting report analyzes Ibirogba’s draft potential, current mock draft trends, and where he ranks among the top prospects.
Mateen Ibirogba’s NFL Draft Potential
Mateen Ibirogba is my current DT2 and one of the biggest risers of the 2025 college football season thus far. Originally from Clarksburg, Maryland, Ibirogba played out his first two collegiate seasons at Georgetown. There, he was a 250-pound edge rusher who flashed promise, but sparingly produced. Since then, he’s bulked up to 296 pounds at a well-leveraged 6’3″, and has become an unhinged disruptive force with his retained explosion and athleticism.
Ibirogba’s first step is lethal — perhaps rivaled only by Woods and Durant in the 2026 DT class. The FCS transfer teleports off the snap and can use his hyper-elite explosiveness to rocket up gaps as a rusher, or teleport across-face in the run game. Beyond sheer explosion, Ibirogba has shown he can leverage his burst, length, and compact mass into overwhelming power output on bull-rushes and long-arms, and he can also puncture run gaps and use “knee drop” technique to absorb combo blocks.
Ibirogba is built a bit high-cut or high-hipped, and that can cause upward pad level drift later in reps at times. As a result, he can be displaced by double teams on the interior, and his upward drift can make him easier to gather on counters in the pass-rush phase. The consistency is still coming along, in general — one such reason why Ibirogba still has a sub-50% snap share, despite being so effective when he’s on the field. Nevertheless, Ibirogba is a budding two-phase menace with tantalizing athletic tools.
Thus far in 2025, Ibirogba has a strong PFSN CFB DTi grade of 82.6. He has an exceptional 15.4% PFF pressure rate on pass-rushing snaps, as well as a respectable 2.4% TFL rate on running downs. With 2 sacks and 3 TFLs in six games, the raw production is still coming along, but Ibirogba has the superlative explosive element, the raw power capacity, and the two-phase utility to command early-round capital.
CFB Week 9 Update
Ibirogba didn’t show up much on the stat sheet in Week 9, but his impact was visible on the field in his constricted snap share. Ibirogba drew double-teams more than once as a pass-rusher and stressed blockers with his lightning-quick first-step, and he also used his combined explosion, power, and leverage to act as a tree stump against interior run blocks.
There were times where he drifted too high with his pads and was sledged back, but overall, Ibirogba made his presence felt and helped contribute to SMU’s poor offensive showing, as Wake Forest’s other playmakers orbited around him.
Where Is Ibirogba Being Selected Most Often in the PFSN Mock Draft Simulator?
Ibirogba currently holds the No. 79 overall rank among prospects, reflecting his standing among mid-round prospects. His most recent Average Draft Position (ADP) of 97.8 as of October 27 reflects that he is typically being selected on Day 2 or early Day 3.
The gap between his rank and ADP indicates that while he’s highly regarded on our board, draft simulators are seeing him slide slightly, possibly due to team needs or positional value considerations.
Users controlling the Green Bay Packers have been the team that selected Ibirogba the most frequently over the past week, accounting for 1.0% of their picks across all seven rounds.
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Where Does Mateen Ibirogba Rank Amongst Other NFL Draft Prospects?
Ibirogba is currently ranked No. 43 overall in my October 2026 NFL Draft Big Board. Among DT prospects, Ibirogba ranks 2nd at the position, trailing Peter Woods. With a ranking inside the top 64, Ibirogba is positioned as a Day 2 prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Want to see how we rank all the draft prospects in the PFSN Mock Draft Simulator? Check out our NFL Draft Prospect Rankings page, which includes more than 750 prospects.
