Top five edge rushers in college football 2020
As the 2020 college football season winds down, 2021 NFL Draft talk will heat up. Here are the top five edge rushers in college football, a group of future NFL Draft prospects.
Just missed the cut: Quincy Roche (Miami), Carlos Basham Jr. (Wake Forest) & Chris Rumph II (Duke)
1. Kwity Paye (Michigan)
First up here, I put the guy Bruce Feldman had as his number one list of the Athletic’s Freak List. The at 6’4”, 275 pounder is a former high school running, who came in as more of a raw piece of clay with his ridiculous athletic ability, but he took on a more prominent role his junior year, when he recorded 12.5 TFLs and 6.5 sacks, but he took another major step forward in 2020 and it was evident right away in the season-opener against Minnesota, where he made three TFLs and was in Tanner Morgan’s grill all game long, including back-to-back sacks in the fourth quarter. Paye is strong at the point of attack, with some shock in his hands and he can yank the blocker to the side in order to make the tackle. As a pass-rusher he shows impressive burst off the edge to go with a strong rip to knock away the hands of the blocker, to go with a highly effective up-and-under, and the Wolverines have put him over guards much more often this season. You still see him work too far upfield in the run game at times and he gets a little too hung up with the hands of tackles as a rusher. Those two Alabama OTs held him to one tackle on the stat sheet in this most recent Citrus Bowl.
2. Joseph Ossai (Texas)
After very limited playing time as a freshman, this 6’4”, 255-pound Nigerian emerged as a key piece to that Longhorn defense in 2019, with a combined 90 tackles, 13.5 of them for loss, five sacks and two interceptions. This season he has transitioned from WILL to more of a hybrid outside backer role, which that move certainly paid off. Barely anybody in college football flashes off the edge with speed quite like Ossai, which he routinely forces tackle out of their chair with and he frees himself from the hands by swims and chops. He is very unique in the way he deals with blocks as a run-defender, not really leaning his weight forward, but rather knocking the way the hands of his man and trying to get around him. When you talk about all-out hustle for 60 minutes, there may be nobody who brings it quite like Ossai and he has the speed to chase ball-carriers down from behind time and time again. This guy was all over the field in the 2019 Alamo Bowl versus Utah, collecting double-digit tackles, three sacks and six TFLs. And this season he already came up with the game-sealing sack in overtime against Oklahoma State. Ossai still has to learn how to take on pulling linemen and deconstructing blocks in general as an on-ball defender however.