NFL Draft Sleeper: N.C. State pass rusher Mike Rose

We love finding some of the best NFL Draft sleepers in the country, and one player that you don’t hear much about is North Carolina State pass rusher Mike Rose, the leading sack artist in the ACC.

The 6-foot-3, 270 pound defensive end led the Wolfpack a year ago with 14 tackles for loss, was second on the team with five sacks, and forced a pair of fumbles. This season, coaches laud his consistency, and that has showed up on Saturdays in a big way. Rose has 10.5 sacks this season, leading the ACC, and has also added 14 tackles for loss, five QB hurries, and another pair of forced fumbles.

He’s not only emerged as the leader of the 9th ranked defense in the country, but he’s proven he’s got some game that can translate to the next level. Let’s take a closer look…

This is a pretty basic read here for Rose, a play in which he thought he was going to be defending the run. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but the coverage is good enough on the play that he’s able to attack Everett Golson who is (somehow) still holding on to the football. As Rose closes in for the hit, he doesn’t even realize he’s punched the football lose and has the awareness to find it, and then recover it.

Here’s Rose coming from the opposite edge, this time he’s in his rush. He beats the right tackle on the outside and uses his good leverage to push through the block, into the quarterback for the sack. This is a pretty basic pass rush here, but it’s effective and he gets to the QB.

Here he is standing up in a goal-to-go situation. Like the first highlight here, he initially reads run but when he sees that the QB still has the football, look at how he explodes upfield to get a hit on him and make the sack.

Here he is again reading an option play, and look again at the explosiveness to get upfield and then the ability to finish the play. This QB really had no chance but Rose makes sure this play goes nowhere. You can see in all of these plays the type of tenacity with which the ACC sack leader plays, and why he’s now got 10.5 sacks instead of just the five he had all of last year — he’s finishing plays and doing it in critical spots.

Rose might not test well athletically, or so the pundits say, but he stands out for all the right reasons on game film and has consistently made plays dating back to last season. He’s made the necessary strides to put together the type of resume NFL teams will be interested in, and if some team is able to draft him in the mid-rounds, they might have a nice steal on their hands.