One of the breakout stars of the 2023 college football season, all eyes are now on Stanford Cardinal wide receiver Elic Ayomanor and his 2025 NFL Draft scouting report. Can Ayomanor be one of the first wideouts selected in the 2025 class?
Elic Ayomanor’s Draft Profile and Measurements
- Height: 6’2″
- Weight: 210 pounds
- Position: Wide Receiver
- School: Stanford
- Current Year: Redshirt Sophomore
There might not be a more interesting WR prospect in the 2025 NFL Draft class than Ayomanor. The 6’2″, 210-pounder was originally born in Medicine Hat, Alberta, before crossing the United States-Canada border to play high school ball at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts.
At Deerfield, Ayomanor stood out on the football field, in track (with a personal best 100m dash of 10.76), and in the classroom. He had offers to play football at a host of Power Five and Ivy League schools but chose to suit up for Stanford on the West Coast.
Ayomanor’s first season was robbed of him by a torn ACL, MCL, and meniscus suffered in a preseason practice. But in 2023, the redshirt freshman returned with a vengeance — hauling in 62 receptions for 1,013 yards and six touchdowns. He won the Jon Cornish Trophy — given to the best Canadian football player in CFB.
The highlight of Ayomanor’s 2023 resurgence was a breathtakingly dominant performance against Travis Hunter and the Colorado Buffaloes — in which Ayomanor caught 13 passes for a school-record 294 yards and three touchdowns.
The flashes of multi-phase dominance are ultimately what make Ayomanor such an intriguing player — but how does he translate to the professional game?
Ayomanor’s Scouting Report
Strengths
- Has a strong, well-built frame with great mass and decent proportional length.
- Possesses wicked foot speed and searing throttle quickness when attacking open zones.
- Venerable RAC threat with good speed, bend, physicality, and grating contact balance.
- Flashes upside as an energetic, flexible separator with twitch and redirection freedom.
- Has shown to displace defenders with foot-fire releases then cut acute slant angles.
- Can sink, chop his feet, and quickly retract his strides on hitches and comeback routes.
- Shows glimpses of efficient plant-and-drive footwork on slants and digs after pressing.
- Can use his speed and burst to manipulate DB leverage while adjusting tracking angles.
- Instinctive catcher with superb body control and contortion ability on the vertical plane.
- Able to gather passes over the middle with diamond hand technique, then reset for RAC.
- Can make high-difficulty adjustments in stride, to corral passes while keeping speed.
- Has the play strength to utterly outmuscle ill-positioned defenders on 50-50 balls.
- Has good play strength through contact and can secure passes in contested situations.
- Doesn’t get claustrophobic in tight quarters and tracks passes well in tight coverage.
- Willing and physical blocker with great play strength, leverage IQ, and proactivity.
Weaknesses
- Explosiveness, while great, may be a notch below the elite mark off the snap.
- Vertical speed, while solid, also visibly falls short of elite, at times impacting stacking.
- Despite cylindrical energy, lacks elite change-of-direction and “make you miss” agility.
- Is at times a bit static with his stride lengths and variations when pressing into stems.
- Sometimes can better channel his full explosive capacity out of sharp route transitions.
- At times, lacking zone awareness causes him to drift into defenders off breaks.
- Sometimes adds extra fat on hitch routes by drifting upfield after breaks, losing space.
- Doesn’t quite have elite hip flexibility, which can stall acceleration out of breaks.
- Can improve lateral sequencing on releases and, at times, struggles to stack hand moves.
- Has room to expand route tree and incorporate more multi-layered intermediate routes.
- Can be prone to occasional focus drops over the middle, bringing his hands too wide.
- Sometimes lets the ball come into his frame out of breaks, causing bobbled passes.
- Despite frame density, contact balance and leg churn are not quantifiably elite traits.
- Missed the entire 2022 season after tearing his ACL, MCL, and meniscus in practice.
Current Draft Projection and Summary
Entering the 2025 NFL Draft cycle, Ayomanor grades out as a top-100 prospect in the 2025 class but could eventually command early-to-mid Day 2 capital. He’s a young player on a promising trajectory but also has limitations and imperfections that bear noting.
Both as a RAC threat and a contested-catch savant, Ayomanor has some of the most distinct two-phase big-play ability in the 2025 NFL Draft. When the ball is in his hands, he’s strong, explosive, and physical. And when he’s tracking it in the air, he’s proactive, clutch, authoritative, and brings an alpha mentality.
Even more exciting about Ayomanor’s tape is the promise of an independent separator. He’s still developing that part of his game, but Ayomanor has great cylindrical twitch, initial foot speed, and flexibility, which he can use to offset, sink, and surge out of breaks.
At the moment, Ayomanor’s game is still somewhat incomplete. While he flashes elite hand strength and instincts, he can be prone to focus drops and haphazard hand technique. And while he can separate on quick slants, comebacks, and hitches, his overall sequencing — both on stems and releases — could be more consistent.
As a separator and catch-point convertor, Ayomanor has visible upside but also prevalent flaws. That’s made more distinct when you factor in an overall lack of quantifiably elite physical traits and his inconsistent release work versus press.
Still, Ayomanor has definite appeal as a movement-Z receiver who can take advantage of isolated opportunities in space as an RAC threat and use his contested chops to outmuscle defenders on the boundary. At his peak, Ayomanor can be a high-quality WR2 with big-play ability.