Coachspeak: Miami’s Stroud on Garvin
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Jonathan Garvin, who won’t turn 21 until July 28, is the youngest player on the Green Bay Packers’ roster. A seventh-round pick out of Miami, the potential-packed pass rusher should only get better with time.
“His best football is certainly in front of him,” said Todd Stroud, the Hurricanes’ assistant head coach and defensive line coach. “I wish we could have had him another year. He’s going to be a good player for somebody.”
Garvin had a breakout sophomore season in 2018 with 5.5 sacks and 17 tackles for losses among his 60 stops. In 2019, he had five sacks and nine TFLs as he wound up playing second fiddle to Gregory Rousseau, the freshman who earned All-American honors with 15.5 sacks and 19.5 TFLs.
“I think the biggest thing is his ability to play the run,” Stroud said of where Garvin improved last season. “He got sturdier at the point of attack with the added body weight. From a fundamental standpoint, I think his hands improved over the course of the year. He became a leader, too – a little bit more of a vocal leader. One of the biggest things about him is just his body and what he did with his body in a year. Just from the time that he finished his last game to the time he was at the Combine, he probably put on about 12 really good pounds. Going into that Combine weighing 263 and his measureables were about where I thought they were going to be. He was very good at the Combine. I think those measureables will just continue to improve. With his age as he enters his 21st, 22nd, 23rd year, I think that his upside is going to be huge.”
