The Las Vegas Raiders should be in the free safety market this offseason, and TCU’s Bud Clark made quite a name for himself at the Senior Bowl a few weeks ago. Clark’s ball skills stood out in Mobile, collecting several interceptions and PBUs during the one-on-ones and full team periods of practice throughout the week to help give his 2026 NFL draft stock a boost.
Granted, that wasn’t much of a surprise, seeing as the former Horned Frog racked up 15 interceptions and 21 passes defended over his last four seasons in college. Adding to that, Clark was tied for fourth among Power 4 safeties (minimum 113 coverage snaps) with seven forced incompletions at a relatively high 18 percent clip, while also finishing tied for eighth with four interceptions, according to Pro Football Focus.
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But the TCU product is more than just a ball hawk on the back end of the defense. He’s coming off a strong campaign as a run defender, earning an 83.1 PFF run defense grade that ranked in the top 20 for Power 4 safeties.
With that in mind, let’s flip on the tape and see what the safety prospect could bring to the Raiders.
We’ll start with a good example of how Clark can provide run support while playing from depth, which is an underrated element of his game, in my opinion.
West Virginia is running a speed option to the wide side of the field with Clark lined up over the slot receiver in a three-by-one formation. The Mountaineers are trying to test the Horned Frogs’ defensive backs’ abilities to play the run with their playcall, but that plan blows up in the offense’s face.
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Clark recognizes the play design and uses good timing and acceleration to defeat the wide receiver’s block by waiting until the receiver starts breaking down to crash downhill. Then, the safety’s speed comes into play, and he does a decent job of swiping the receiver’s hand away to keep his momentum going. Finally, he makes a nice open-field tackle by breaking down and wrapping up to come up with the tackle for loss.
This is what happens when a defensive back has good instincts and the speed/athleticism to take advantage.
Building on the previous clip, TCU faces a more traditional run play with Iowa State dialing up power out of 12 personnel. Clark starts the play lined up about eight and a half yards deep and on the hashmark. However, once he sees the second tight end shift to the strong side of the formation, creating an unbalanced line, he starts to creep toward the line of scrimmage, likely expecting a run play.
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Post-snap, the safety’s pre-snap read was correct, so he crashes downhill to get involved in the run fit by filling the alley and making the tackle for a two-yard gain. That’s perfect run support while playing from depth, as it sets up the defense with a chance to get off the field on third and three.
Moving on to his coverage skills, Clark’s open-field tackling continues to stand out.
TCU is bringing the heat on this play, blitzing the outside linebacker and nickelback off the edge. But West Virginia has a great play call for it, running an RPO with a screen to the slot receiver, forcing the safety to come downhill and tackle in space. The problem is that Clark perfectly executes his assignment, recognizing the screen, crashing downhill with speed to close the gap and breaking down to make the open-field tackle.
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The Mountaineers got the matchup they wanted, as the receiver had plenty of space to make the defensive back miss and get the first down. But Clark made the play to get the defense a win and put the offense behind the sticks.
Shifting gears to the former Horned Frog’s biggest strength and how he’ll make his money in the NFL: ball skills in coverage.
SMU runs play-action and sends the slot receiver on a post-route, which is a good play-call for TCU’s Tampa 2 coverage. The middle of the field should be open since the Tampa dropper/linebacker freezes for a second with the run fake, and the defense is in a split safety coverage. However, Clark recognizes the slot receiver’s route and does a good job of flipping his hips to play the post.
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From there, he uses his speed to close on the receiver and get in a position to make a play on the ball. The safety takes a big gamble by undercutting the route instead of staying on top of it, but an impressive vertical jump makes the bet pay off by forcing the incompletion with a PBU.
That being said, Clark definitely likes to take risks in coverage and will get burned because of it. Later in this game, SMU ran a similar play and the quarterback managed to layer the pass over his head for a touchdown. So, toeing the line between gambling and being reckless is something the TCU product will need to work on at the next level.
This time, Clark is in man coverage against a slot fade route from Iowa State and plays it perfectly. He’s in off-coverage and parks himself about eight yards past the line of scrimmage to be in a position to drive on a short route or run with a deep one.
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Right before breaking toward the sideline, the receiver gives a head fake to the inside. However, Clark isn’t fooled and does a good job of using his hands to get attached to the receiver and stay in phase on the slot fade. With air-tight coverage, he looks over his outside shoulder to locate the ball in the air and comes down with the interception.
That’s excellent man coverage skills and strong hands from the safety to come up with a momentum-changing play.
Finally, capitalizing on tips and overthrows is how safeties make their money in the NFL, and this is a great example of that from Clark.
TCU is running Cover 3, where he’s the single-high safety against a three-by-one formation from Iowa State with the trips receivers lined up in the boundary. Post-snap, Clark tries to read the quarterback’s eyes and starts moving toward the single receiver on the wide side of the field. However, the quarterback doesn’t want to test the one-on-one matchup against off coverage and works to his second read, the dig route.
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Clark is slightly out of position after working toward the single receiver, but he recovers by stopping on the hash mark and diving to dig out the interception after the cornerback breaks up the pass at the catch point. So, Clark does get away with being a little over-aggressive on this rep. However, it does highlight his play-making ability on the backend of the defense.
As of Feb. 10, Clark ranks 106th overall and as a fourth-round pick on NFL Mock Draft Database’s consensus big board. If that remains the case over the next couple of months, he’d be a great candidate for the Raiders with pick 102 and may end up being an option in the third round at 67.