Two Miami DL Make Pro Football Focus Top 10

Defensive linemen Leonard Taylor and Akheem Mesidor had highly productive 2022 college football seasons for the Miami Hurricanes.

So much so, in fact, that Pro Football Focus graded each prospect in their top 10 by position. For Taylor, that was impressive for a player that was only a sophomore at The U.

Top 10 highest graded Defensive Tackles from the 2022 season pic.twitter.com/KFVYlRndbQ
— PFF College (@PFF_College) January 18, 2023

Taylor’s quickness and burst off the snap of the football alone was fun to watch. He’s long since been beating offensive linemen with his quick hands to get into the backfield as well.

For the season, Taylor had 24 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, six quarterback hurries, and an interception. Taylor’s partner on the edge, Mesidor, showed his talents in a similar fashion.

Quickness was his best friend as well. Many of the battles Mesidor won against offensive tackles really started and ended with his first step towards the backfield. Mesidor quickly engaged the offensive tackle, used a pass rush move before the opposing player could defend it, and then he won with leverage and bending past his opposition so that it aided him in going around the corner towards the quarterback.

Top 10 highest graded Edge Rushers from the 2022 season pic.twitter.com/YT0wls2r68
— PFF College (@PFF_College) January 18, 2023

Mesidor’s statistics ended up being 38 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, seven sacks, three quarterback hurries, four pass breakups and one forced fumble.

As a unit, the Hurricanes recorded 37 sacks and 82 tackles for loss. That meant that 27% of Miami’s sacks came from the two aforementioned players, and 25.6% of the tackles for loss came from Taylor and Mesidor as well.

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