Despite having only started one career game, Chris Rumph II is finally getting the attention he deserves.
Last week, Pro FootballFocus (PFF) released its list of the top 50 college players for the upcoming 2020 season. What may have been surprising to some but not the diehard Blue Devil fans, Duke’s edge rusher Chris Rumph II was seventh on their list. And he is for real.
For the entire 2019 season, Rumph managed to fill up the stat sheet in big ways, one being jumping from 3.0 sacks his freshman year to 6.5 this past season. To go along with, he totaled 13.5 tackles for loss and managed to post a 92.9 pass-rush grade. For comparison, second overall pick of the 2020 NFL Draft Chase Young had a grade of 96.5.
Considering Chase Young had the stats to be rated as the best pass rusher of the PFF era, falling just short of his grade is nothing to bat an eye at. Not only this, but Rumph posted all of these stats while leading the FBS with a 30.8 percent pass-rush win rate.
His success at the position becomes even more impressive when you take a closer look at his size. At 225-pounds, Rumph falls very short of the national average for the defensive line, listed at about 270-pounds for an NCAA Division I FBS player. Yet Rumph continues to blow through blocks and get stops when he is called into action.
Throughout his first two years, Rumph has shown flashes of the highly-touted player he is now. He has seen the field in all 25 games of his Duke career and has 16 games with two or more tackles. The Gainesville, Fla. native has only registered less than a single tackle in one game and is currently on a 20-game streak of having at least one.
In his freshman year against Georgia Tech, Rumph posted 4.0 tackles for loss, tying the single-game record for a Duke freshman. He repeated this same feat in 2019 against Middle Tennessee and has a total of 5 games with 2.0 or more tackles for loss.
In the last game of the 2019 season against Miami, Rumph had a career day. He posted a total of 8.0 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks and a forced fumble. It seemed as though the work he had put in was really starting to show.
Rumph is highly ranked for a good reason. Be sure to look out for him putting pressure on the quarterback and stopping runs as Duke starts its season against Notre Dame on September 12.
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