He took the long route to get here, but Florida State star pass rusher Jared Verse has officially announced that he will enter the 2024 NFL Draft, opting out of the Seminoles’ Orange Bowl matchup with the Georgia Bulldogs, per ESPN’s Andrea Adelson. Verse, a redshirt senior in Tallahassee, is widely considered to be a likely Day One pick as a consensus top-five pass rushing prospect.

Verse spent two seasons at the FCS level playing for Albany before he found his way to Florida State. Over 15 games with the Great Danes, Verse recorded 14.5 sacks, 21.5 tackles for loss, and 15 quarterback hurries while also being named an FCS Freshman All-American. His 10.5-sack sophomore year helped him navigate his way to Tallahassee through the transfer portal, where he would make an immediate impact.

Last year, Verse made nine starts in 12 game appearances for the Seminoles. He took the new opportunity against an increased level of competition to demonstrate his explosiveness and disruptiveness. He led a staunch FSU defense in both sacks (9.0) and tackles for loss (17.0). He gained national recognition for his performance, and his name even gained traction as a potential first-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. He sat near the back of most first-round projections due to an inconsistency in playmaking and an occasional tendency to disappear.

Not content with where his Day One draft status sat, Verse returned for another year at Florida State in the hopes of pushing himself into the top 10 draft picks. Coming into the season, Dane Brugler of The Athletic ranked Verse as the nation’s top pass rushing draft prospect for the 2024 draft. While in many aspects, Verse continued to improve, there were still sections of the season that would see him fade from relevance just for him to explode with potential a week or two later.

Expected to improve on his numbers from 2022, Verse only matched his previous sack total (9.0) while failing to reach the tackles for loss total (12.5). He did deal with a knee injury that may have affected his output a bit, something NFL teams may note. Regardless, Verse has a rare combination of speed off the line and pure power. At the NFL level, his impressive get-off and bullrush won’t be enough to get the job done by themselves, meaning he’ll have to expand his arsenal of pass rushing moves in order to succeed at the next level.

With an offense-heavy top of the draft, Verse tends to project as an early, mid-round pick, as illustrated by Mel Kiper of ESPN’s Big Board . He’ll compete with fellow pass rushers Laiatu Latu from UCLA, Dallas Turner from Alabama, and Chop Robinson from Penn State for the honor of the draft’s best pass rusher. Latu, Turner, and Robinson have all functioned as outside linebackers, as opposed to Verse who has routinely worked with a hand in the dirt, so he’ll need to show in pre-draft testing that he’s as athletic as the rest of the field, if not more so.