Syracuse Orange football has a grand total of nine sacks through the first four games of the season.
Three of them are from one man - and he got there in just twelve snaps.
KingJoseph Edwards started off his college career with a bang - then added two more - during SU’s victory over Holy Cross. His 84.2 PFF Pass Rusher Grade was the highest of anyone in the Orange front seven, and the second highest on the season behind Fadil Diggs’s Week 2 rating.
Take a look for yourself:
You can see Edwards on both sides of the rush, easily shaking off blocks as well as reading the fake handoff extremely well on the second play. Despite it being a small sample size of the former Top-25 Edge prospect, I believe that he is the key to locking down opposing QBs.
As a team, the Orange had a 68.1 PFF pass rush rating in 2023 - 11th in the ACC and 100th among all FBS teams. In other words... not great.
This year didn’t start out much different, despite the switch to the 4-2-5 defensive scheme. The unit racked up grades of 69.2, 67.9, and 65.7 in their first three games - all without Edwards. Then his performance in Week 5 boosted it all the way up to 82.4, which is viewed as excellent on the PFF scale.
They’re now at an overall grade of 77.7 - 4th in the conference and 21st nationally.
Of course there will be pointing out that Edwards dominated late against an FCS team - hardly the ideal specimen to evaluate his talent. I’ll argue with the intangibles.
The film shows Edwards exploding off first contact and quickly shedding whatever blocker is in front of him. He actually weighs the least (225 lbs) of any DL on the Syracuse roster, which allows him to dash off the edge or through a hole, or stop and start on a dime as he did with sack #2.
SU needs every advantage it can get with defensive captain Marlowe Wax still sidelined. Fadil Diggs has been a huge boost, but it’s not difficult to scheme most of your plays to the weak side and neutralize a team’s top blitzer.
I’m not calling for Denis Jaquez to be benched or anything, but Edwards should be rotated in and/or used in situations where Fran Brown and Elijah Robinson want to force fast pressure. Why not try tonight with a QB only making his second start of the season?