Alabama’s Will Anderson Jr. is a “generations” rusher

Few coaches can better serve as the ruling judge of the Alabama line of defense than former Florida offensive line coach John Hevesy.

Hevesy enrolled for 17 consecutive years in the SEC in Florida, Mississippi State, and then again in Florida from 2005-2021. This means he will face the Crimson Tide Trenchers Assembly Line during Saban’s 15 seasons in Tuscaloosa.

The foundation of the Alabama dynasty has been created by the annual dominance of the line of defense, including double-digit first- or second-round selections since 2010. Amidst all this talent, they have never had a caliber of sophomore Will Anderson. Jr.

“They’ve been great, but he’s different,” Hevesy told Yahoo Sports in a phone interview. “He has enough power to hit you, but what makes him different is that he’s going to chase things after him.”

When Georgia faces Alabama on Monday night in the College Football playoffs, it’s a match between the two most talented teams in the sport. Each list is made up of five and four star athletes. In the midst of all this glitter, Anderson enters the game as the best player on the field.

Anderson’s plundering period of relentless domination, highlighted by FBS’s best 17.5 pots and 34.5 losses, has made him number one in the 2023 NFL Draft. Weighing 6 feet 4 and 243 pounds, he is the most unstoppable force in the sport.

Anderson’s main event for that number one pick in 2023 is likely to come from his own locker room, with second-year Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young next year’s most talented quarterback in the sport. The need for a quarterback has been shown to exceed the overall talent in previous drafts.

But there’s a rare air around Anderson that makes him play players like former South Carolina star Jadeveon Clowney and former Texas A&M star Myles Garrett, both of whom started their final college seasons as the overwhelming favorites to be number one. .

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“I think he’s a generation of talent,” said former NFL director Mike Tannenbaum, an analyst at ESPN and the founder of the 33rd team. “He’s jerky, explosive, instinctive. He has a great game temperament.

Anderson, 20, finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy vote, which meant he didn’t even gain experience traveling to New York for the ceremony. But the off-season, praised as the most talented sport possible, could help him get better recognition in next season’s vote.

Few can deny his ability to destroy the game, as his average of 2.5 TFLs per game is an almost complete jacket before the next college footballer (Wisconsin’s Leo Chenal and Utah’s Devin Lloyd 1.6). Choose a destroyed game plan – four sacks against the Mississippi State, four TFLs and a punch against the LSU, or three TFLs against Auburn. With Monday’s kick, he can overtake Derrick Thomas for the second most kicks of the season in Alabama. He won’t finish first, as Thomas registered the 27 astronomical sacks in 1988, an unofficial NCAA record.

NFL scouts don’t scrutinize players who aren’t eligible for a draft, so Anderson’s deep dives have to wait until the offseason. But it’s also impossible not to notice how destructive Anderson is when he looks at Tide, and it’s fair to assume he would be firmly in the conversation about the best choice for the upcoming NFL draft if he were eligible for the draft.

“He jumped out in about every game I saw,” the veteran patrol said. “He’s just different from the other guys they’ve had when it comes to pass rusher eaters. They’re always big interior designers. I’m not sure how many real edge separators they’ve had.

Alabama’s scariest edge players during Saban’s tenure came in 2015, when Jonathan Allen and Tim Williams formed a menacing duo and ended up in a 22.5 combined sack. Allen was selected in the first round and Williams in the third in 2017.

Since 2010, there have been at least 20 defensive linemen in Alabama. At least 11 of them have been selected in the first or second round. (These numbers may be a bit ambiguous due to position semantics, as the NFL considered players like Ryan Anderson, Anfernee Jennings and others to be hybrids. Will Anderson is actually listed as a linebacker, but will be considered an edge drinker and will be considered a defensive lineman or 3-4 edge runner. In the NFL, Yahoo’s NFL draft expert Eric Edholm compares him to Von Miller.)

None of Saban’s previous linemen have Williams ’skills and potential for exclusion. He’s 6 feet 4 and 243 pounds, which means he’s not a perfect physical freak, like 6 feet 5, weighing 266 pounds Clowney or 6 feet 4, weighing 272 pounds Garrett. But what might be lost in NFL combo numbers is offset by unparalleled engine and diversity with skills.

“He just goes and goes and goes,” Hevesy said. “You can sit there and say, ‘What are we going to do to stop him?’ He’s everywhere. You always have to account for him. It’s hard to get him (back), but you’re doing things so you can get him. “

Anderson’s supremacy has also allowed Alabama to develop a little defensively in the third bill. Hevesy said earlier in Alabama while playing that they brought exotic pressure to the third downhill as a way to produce a pass rush. This has helped Alabama get the SEC’s top 15 abductions despite the fact that the secondary game lacked the usual waves of talent.

“The difference is that they can rush four and still play coverage and get pressure without them going crazy,” Hevesy said. “They don’t have to go exotic. In the third and seventh, they can stay four down.

And while there’s certainly an artificial debate and invented debate going on that Anderson won’t be playing in Alabama next season until he’s eligible for a draft, this topic is much more firmly rooted in creating content than reality. Anderson arrives at the national championship along a rare track, a defensive streak that has been booked for number one before the end of the second year.

“I think he’s one of those guys with both character and talent,” Tannenbaum said. “It’s clear how important it is to him. I think he has a chance to be really special.”