AUBURN — For a handful of former Auburn football standouts who capped their time in college with the 2023 season, the wait is almost over.

These former Tigers — a group that's likely to include cornerbacks Nehemiah Pritchett and DJ James, defensive linemen Marcus Harris and Justin Rogers and safety Jaylin Simpson — will soon find out where they're going to begin their professional careers.

The 2024 NFL Draft is set to begin with Round 1 on Thursday (7 p.m. CT), continue with Rounds 2-3 on Friday (6 p.m. CT) and end with Rounds 4-7 on Saturday (11 a.m. CT). Auburn has had a player selected in every draft since 2004, and before that the run lasted from 1977-2002.

Getting drafted anywhere is a culmination of years upon years of hard work, but that doesn't mean a player can't feel slighted if they slip down the board and get passed over by team after team. Here's a rundown of a couple of Tigers who we believe, based on mock drafts, could be underrated:

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Jaylin Simpson's NFL draft projections

No one can accuse Simpson of lacking moxie.

The 6-foot defensive back, who began his career as a safety before transitioning to cornerback in 2020 and back to safety in 2022, plays with an edge that helped him be a semifinalist for the Jim Thorpe Award last season. His slender frame may scare some teams off, but his playmaking should be enough of an incentive for a team to take a chance on him.

Projections from various sites have Simpson going anywhere between the fourth and sixth rounds, and it skews more toward the latter than it does the former. Simpson registered five takeaways through the first five weeks of the season, including an impressive interception against Georgia in Week 5. He also caused another interception at LSU the next week by breaking on a pass and popping the ball in the air, giving teammate DJ James an opportunity to run underneath it.

Simpson's missed tackle rate of 14.9% ranked No. 250 of the 461 safeties across the country who logged at least 15 tackles last season, per Pro Football Focus. It's something he'll have to work on, no doubt, but slipping to the sixth round feels like too much of a drop off for someone with a knack for big plays.

Marcus Harris NFL draft projections

The development of Harris is nothing to scoff at.

Rated by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 1,968 player in the Class of 2019, Harris signed with Kansas out of high school and spent the first two seasons of his career there. His numbers were solid during his sophomore campaign — 27 total tackles, including 7.5 tackles for loss — but he helped himself by proving he could do it in the SEC as a junior the next year, tallying 27 tackles with six tackles for loss at Auburn in 2021. The stats were similar in 2022, but Harris took it to another level in 2023.

The 6-foot-2, 286-pound Harris registered career-best marks in tackles (40), tackles for loss (11) and sacks (seven) as a fifth-year senior. His overall defensive rating from PFF of 82.4 paced SEC defensive linemen, and his mark as a run defender (87.4) ranked No. 11 nationally amongst defensive linemen.

Mock drafts have Harris going in the fifth-to-six-round range. The sixth round feels a bit late for someone who has shown year-over-year improvement and proved in 2023 that he can be a productive player in rushing the passer and defending the run.

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn football players in NFL draft: Most underrated prospects