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As the 2020 college football season winds down, 2021 NFL Draft talk will heat up. Here are the top five interior defensive linemen in college football, a group of future NFL Draft prospects.
Just missed the cut: Dante Stills (West Virginia) & Khyiris Tonga (BYU)
1. Alim McNeill (NC State)
McNeill immediately stepped into action for the Wolfpack since arriving in Raleigh and he’s been an absolute rock in the middle of that defense. In 2019, he recorded 7.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks as mostly a true 0-technique, but he has been even better this season. His ability to anchor down and swallow double-teams with great leverage and the ability to completely control centers is unbelievable and he can just pull big linemen to the side when he sees the ball-carrier approaching. While he rarely is left wit one-on-ones in the pass game and is asked to take a lot of wide angles, he has had more than solid production in that regard, mostly by hitting the arm-over. He also had a pick-six earlier this year against Virginia, where he tipped it to himself and basically put the game on ice. While I sometimes would like to see him not get as locked in with the center as a run defender (and that may be a coaching staff), for him it’s about showing a more diverse pass-rushing arsenal.
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2. Darius Stills (West Virginia)
He may not be massive in terms of pure weight, Stills has a really wide frame at 6’1”, 285 pounds. In 2019 he recorded 12 TFLs and six sacks, to go with a couple of PBUs and fumbles forced each, which earned him first-team All-Big 12 honors. This guy is a true upfield penetrator, who flashes in the backfield time and time again, by slicing through his gap and affect run plays, before they can even get going. With the amount of natural power he shows, he can overpower offensive linemen in their pass sets at a high rate. Stills has a violent club arm and he can kind of dip or rip underneath those blockers. He also runs a bunch of stunts and twists along that Mountaineer front and despite spending the majority of his playing time in-between the guards, he is out there for almost every single snap. Watching this man absolutely destroy upbacks on the punt block team is one the biggest joys of my life. At this point, Stills is just a little with the way he shoots upfield and in the pass-game, once that primary move stalls, you don’t see a whole lot more from Stills, with no dependable counters at this point.
3. Christian Barmore, Alabama
Barmore is one of those guys, who you want to be one of the first ones to step off the bus at 6’5”, 310 pounds with a well filled-out frame. We have seen a lot of great Alabama defensive linemen and this is the next one in line. What pops off the screen when watching Barmore are the length and power he possesses. He can stack and shed blockers with high efficiency, but also attack upfield by knocking linemen off balance with his violent hands. That is also a huge benefit in the pass-rush, where it allows him to clear the hips of the blocker with club-swim or -rip moves. This guy can overpower opponents and brings excellent effort for a big man, when working laterally. Through seven games, he has racked up four sacks, a couple of forced fumbles and batted down three passes, while some strong showings (against Ole Miss & Georgia for example) haven’t really shown up on the stat sheet. At this point his pad-level rises too much still, especially working against double-teams, where he can allow some vertical movement, and he has to learn how to finish a little better.
4. Jordan Davis (Georgia)
When you look at the Georgia nose tackle, this is a 6’6”, 330-pound monster. Davis primarily plays 1-technique for the Bulldog defense, where he rock back and toss aside blockers, but he has also been asked to play a true nose on a few occasions (versus Tennessee for example as part of a bear-front). He is like an immovable object against the run, who against double-teams attacks one man with hands inside their chest and rolls his hips through. Seeing guys try to trap-block him is almost comical at times. For a behemoth like him, the lateral agility and pursuit he displays is excellent. With that being said, he mostly just a pocket-pusher in the pass game and he rarely stays on the field on third downs. He runs quite a few T-T twists on the inside, where he is a really good set-up man, but in terms of his NFL future I think he is limited with the potential he shows as a pass-rusher. So with the amount of interior D-linemen we haven’t seen play this season coming into that draft pool later on in the process, which will most likely push him down the board for me.
5. JaQuan Bailey (Iowa State)
While some people may look at the 6’2”, 265-pound Bailey as more of an edge rusher and he spends quite a bit of time at the 6-alignment, he is at his best under D-end in that 3-down front for the Cyclones. Among this group, nobody has built a more impressive resume, with 44 career tackles for loss, 12 passes knocked down and he become Iowa State’s all-time leading sacker earlier this year (19.5), which he already extended to 25 QB-takedowns. Bailey is highly active as a run defender, looking to knock down the hands of blockers and squeezing through gaps constantly. When offense try to kick him out on power plays and stuff like that, he attacks the inside knee of the puller to create a pile in the backwards. In the pass game, his busy hands are also a big factor and coming free and he can corner really well when coming off the edge, plus he works in the ice-pick to create a better angle for himself. I’d like to see him play under better control in general, especially with the plan he uses as a rusher, and he tends to widen the B-gap by trying to work around rather than stacking up tackles.
If you enjoyed this content, I would really appreciate if you could check out the original full piece - https://halilsrealfootballtalk.com/2020/12/12/top-five-college-players-at-every-position-defense-edition/
