This mind-blowing stat proves Oregon’s Penei Sewell is the best player in college football

Oregon football’s Penei Sewell may be the best player in college football.

In a sport defined by the quarterback position, Penei Sewell stands out.

The Oregon Ducks offensive tackle enters his junior year in Eugene as potentially one of the best pro prospects we’ve ever seen. In two years in the Pac-12, Sewell won the Outland and Morris Trophies, earned First-Team All-Pac-12 honors and was a unanimous First-Team All-American in 2019. And he was only a true sophomore during last college football season!

At 6-foot-6 and 325 pounds, Sewell projects as the first non-quarterback off the board in the 2021 NFL Draft, should he declare a year early. We’re talking about the next Anthony Muñoz, Jonathan Ogden or Orlando Pace here. That’s not to say he’s going No. 1 overall in his draft like Eric Fisher did out of Central Michigan to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013, but Sewell is a game-changer.

Oregon has as good of a chance as any Power 5 team in the country to reach the College Football Playoff. It’s head coach Mario Cristobal’s third full-season as head coach. The Ducks are coming off a Pac-12 Championship and a Rose Bowl victory in 2019. Along with sophomore defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux having a breakout season, these Ducks can win a national title in 2020.

Though offensive tackle is never a position that gets a ton of praise, it is so important to any team’s identity. If you have a dynamic bookend player like Sewell, you can seemingly contend with anybody. And if you had your doubts about Sewell being the next Muñoz, Ogden or Pace, just check out this one stat from Pro Football Focus. Prepare to have your mind blown.

When Penei Sewell drops back into pass protection, defenses have no chance.

And there you have it! In 678 career pass-blocking snaps over the last two years at Oregon, Sewell has allowed one sack. One. That’s it. New Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert has to be thanking his lucky stars for having Sewell keep him in clean in the pocket for two years. Surely, Herbert’s successor Tyler Shough is ecstatic to know his blind side will be protected that well.

While allowing a sack less than 0.15 percent of the time is insane, it should be noted the Oregon offense is incredibly ground-centric under Cristobal’s watch. He is a former offensive lineman and most head coaches who have come up in that manner prefer a ball-control offense than letting the pigskin fly. That said, Oregon is still a hotbed for pro football passing talent.

With Shough presumably becoming the new Oregon starter, look for the Ducks to lean on the run even more than they did with a fantastic player like Herbert under center. Though Sewell will have had more than 1,000 pass-blocking snaps in his Oregon career before he turns pro, he’s going to be asked to be even more of a road grader out on the edge to help bring the new starting quarterback along.

If Sewell isn’t the first non-quarterback off the board in 2021, somebody made a huge mistake.

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