Detroit — The Michigan Panthers used a good chunk of their 10 selections in the 2024 United Football League college draft to bump up the local flavor on their roster.
The Panthers drafted offensive lineman Brian Dooley, out of Eastern Michigan, with their fourth pick in Wednesday’s draft; quarterback Rocky Lombardi, of Northern Illinois and formerly of Michigan State, with their fifth pick; and offensive tackle J.D. Duplain, out of Michigan State, with their ninth pick.
Eligible players for the UFL college draft must have been out of high school for at least three years, exhausted or waived their college eligibility, and gone undrafted in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Panthers will hold the rights of the drafted players into training camp; all contracts for UFL players include an opt-out in the event of a contract offer from an NFL team. The Panthers saw viral-sensation kicker Jake Bates sign a two-year contract with the Lions after the 2024 UFL season ended.
Dooley was the all-team leader in games played (62) and started (60) for Eastern Michigan, and won the 2023 Disney Spirit Award for being an inspirational figure, after giving his scholarship to a teammate and fellow lineman.
Lombardi was a three-year letterwinner at Michigan State, playing in 22 games with nine starts. He threw for 1,902 yards and 11 touchdowns before transferring to Northern Illinois, where he threw for 5,516 yards and had 31 touchdowns in three seasons.
Duplain was a five-year letterwinner at Michigan State, with 47 career starts, second in program history for an offensive lineman. He played in 42 straight games at one point, 54 in all, and earned honorable mention all-Big Ten three times.
The Panthers, who’ve made the playoffs the last two years while calling Ford Field their home, also drafted Illinois offensive tackle Julian Pearl (first round), Arkansas cornerback Dwight McGlothern (second), Mississippi defensive end Isaac Ukwu (third), Mississippi receiver Dayton Wade (sixth), Florida State defensive back Akeem Dent (seventh), UTEP center Andrew Meyer (eighth) and South Dakota State linebacker Isaiah Stalbird (10th).
Other local notes from Wednesday’s UFL draft: Defensive end Eyabi Okie, who was at Michigan in 2022 before transferring to Charlotte, went in the first round to the Houston Roughnecks; Michigan defensive end Braiden McGregor, of Port Huron, was taken in the fifth round by the D.C. Defenders; and cornerback Myles Sims, who redshirted at Michigan in 2018 and ended up at Georgia Tech, went in the ninth round to the St Louis Battlehawks.
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