Kyle
Kennard.
Kyle
Kennard.
South Carolina· 6'4"· 254 lb· 4.73s 40
"One breakout season at South Carolina turned a four-year Georgia Tech rotation piece into the most decorated defender in college football, and the entire evaluation hinges on whether that year was a discovery or an outlier."Pre-draft read
Kennard is long — 34-inch arms on a 6-4 frame — and he plays to that length. His best rush is a straight-line bull with a late swipe, using his reach to keep tackles off his frame and walk them into the quarterback. He is not twitchy off the snap, so wins arrive on the second or third move, and he needs the pocket to hold a beat to cash them.
Against the run he uses length the same way, extending to read and shed, and he is comfortable standing up as a 3-4 outside linebacker. The stiffness is real: he redirects slowly, gets moved on down blocks when his pads rise, and lacks the ankle bend to turn a corner win into a hit.
He's ideally suited for a 3-4 two-gap or a 4-3 one-gap penetrating front that prioritizes length and disruption on plays designed to get upfield.
Immediate special teams contributor with the upside to develop into a rotational pass rusher who can set the edge.
A Fangio two-high system that asks its edge defenders to consistently drop into coverage and play contain first.
His athleticism and length suggest developmental potential in a system that can afford to be patient with his technique refinement.
South Carolina EDGE Kyle Kennard 2024 Highlights ᴴᴰ
Game film cut-up of Kyle Kennard's South Carolina tape.
Kyle Kennard Full 2024 Season Highlights💥 | South Carolina EDGE
Game film cut-up of Kyle Kennard's South Carolina tape.
Kyle Kennard 2024 South Carolina Gamecocks Highlights ᴴᴰ
Game film cut-up of Kyle Kennard's South Carolina tape.
The resume is extraordinary and narrow. Kennard spent four seasons at Georgia Tech with 6.5 total sacks, transferred to South Carolina and immediately posted 11.5 sacks and 16.5 tackles for loss in twelve games — second in program history behind Jadeveon Clowney — and swept the Nagurski Trophy, consensus All-American honors and SEC Defensive Player of the Year.
The measurables split the difference between the two versions of him. Elite length at 34 inches and a 6-9 wingspan, 23 bench reps, and a pedestrian 4.73 forty with no jumps or agility drills published. That missing agility data matters for a rusher whose tape already raises redirect questions; nothing in the testing pushed back on the stiffness concern.
So the projection rests on a single season and a single trait. Length is a real, durable NFL advantage on the edge, and the counter arsenal he found in Columbia is legitimate. But the four preceding years of modest production sit right there in the file, and a rusher who wins on the second move needs a defense willing to give him time to develop. This is a bet on the arms and the arc, not the box score.
- 01
Rare length
He has 34-inch arms and a 6-9.5 wingspan used to control blockers.
- 02
Legitimate bull-rush
Player possesses a strong bull-rush capable of walking tackles into the pocket.
- 03
Developed counters
He developed a real counter arsenal in his lone South Carolina season.
- 04
Scheme-flexible defender
Player is comfortable with a hand down or standing up as a 3-4 outside linebacker.
- 05
Elite 2024 production
His 2024 production against SEC competition was elite, not padded against weak opponents.
- 01
Modest prior production
Player had four years of modest production before his one breakout season.
- 02
Tight hips
He exhibits tight hips and slow redirect, struggling to change direction mid-rush.
- 03
No published testing
There are no published jumps or agility testing results to answer explosiveness questions.
- 04
Pads rise
Player's pads rise against down blocks, leading to displacement in the run game.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.73sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 23repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Georgia Tech | 6 | 7 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Georgia Tech | 12 | 15 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Georgia Tech | 12 | 36 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | Georgia Tech | 12 | 49 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | South Carolina | 12 | 29 | 11.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Career | — | 54 | 136 | 24 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Bronko Nagurski Trophy (2024)
- Consensus All-American (2024)
- SEC Defensive Player of the Year (2024)
- First-team All-SEC (2024)
Length-based rotational rusher who never quite converts college production to NFL snaps.
Long, scheme-flexible edge who became a productive full-time starter in his mid-20s.
Special-teams and depth edge whose one-year college spike never repeats.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Year one landed on the pessimistic side of the file. Kennard finished his rookie season with two total tackles for the Chargers, buried on a deep edge depth chart and never earning a meaningful rotational role.
There is nothing in that line to evaluate — it is a redshirt season in everything but name. What it does is push the burden of proof back onto the one thing the file always flagged: a player whose entire case rested on twelve games in Columbia now has an NFL season on the ledger that looks a lot more like his four years at Georgia Tech. The length is still there and length ages well. But the window for the South Carolina version to reappear is narrower than it was in April, and year two is the referendum.