Elijah Alston brings excellent Pro Football Focus ratings to the Miami Hurricanes. How will the former Marshall edge rusher factor into Miami's rotation next year?
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00:00 Elijah Alston. This is a Miami Hurricanes addition through the transfer portal and another Marshall
00:07 connection, right? Miami got Lance Guidry last year who performed very well as defensive
00:12 coordinator. He had just been at Marshall. Miami now hires Marshall's defensive backs coach.
00:18 Reportedly, Chavis Jackson has come into Miami and Miami has already brought in a transfer portal
00:24 edge rusher from, you guessed it, Marshall. And that's Elijah Alston. Let me tell you something,
00:28 guys. He could end up being one of those kind of lower key transfer portal additions. You know,
00:34 he doesn't get talked about the way that Cam Ward gets talked about, obviously. But I'll tell you
00:39 who loves Elijah Alston. Pro football focus and their metrics adore Elijah Alston. He has been
00:47 ranked, according to PFF College, number one transfer edge rusher in the entire transfer
00:54 portal class with an elite 91.4 grade. He graded out higher than other top transfer edges like
01:02 Texas's Trey Moore, Ole Miss's Prince Lee, who if I try to pronounce his last name,
01:07 Ouman Alian, and Texas A&M's Eric Skorton. Just to name a few, he grades out higher than all these
01:13 guys who came from high profile schools and went to other high profile schools. Here are the stats
01:19 that Elijah Alston put up this past season at Marshall. 45 tackles, 16 quarterback hurries,
01:26 11 and a half tackles for loss, six sacks, two force fumbles, one interception, and one touchdown.
01:33 So again, this guy has been graded by pro football focus as the number one transfer edge rusher in
01:38 the entire country. So it makes me wonder, folks, because Miami in recent years, you think about a
01:47 guy like Jalen Phillips, very successful transfer edge rusher, right? You think about the type of
01:53 impact years ago that Greg Russo had at Miami. Maybe Elijah Alston can be a number one of these
01:59 impact guys. We got a question I'm going to answer a little bit later on as to who I think the four
02:05 starters are going to be on Miami's defensive line. You've got some really tough questions to
02:10 ask in that department because there are certain guys who I think are not well, maybe at least
02:16 one guy who I think is non-negotiable who's going to be a starter on that defensive line for sure
02:21 next season. You've got a lot of other hungry individuals, especially on the edges that are
02:26 going to be competing for playing time and starting jobs. And what we always say,
02:33 iron sharpens iron, competition makes everyone better. Miami's going to have some competition
02:38 on the D line, especially at the edge rusher spots. And a guy like Elijah Alston is going to
02:43 feature prominently in that group. I think he's going to end up being a really great signing here
02:47 at the University of Miami.