ESPN college football analyst Greg McElroy is high on Clemson linebacker Sammy Brown. Really high, for that matter.

Brown is the big reason why Clemson made McElroy’s list of the top 10 linebacker units in college football.

On his Always College Football show, McElroy ranked the top 10 linebacker groups entering the 2026 season, and Clemson landed at No. 10 – thanks in large part to Brown, the star rising junior.

“This [ranking] kind of comes down to one guy, because this unit’s good,” McElroy said. “But Sammy Brown is the main reason why we feel really confident about this group. … He’s arguably the most productive individual linebacker by raw statistics anywhere in college football. Now here’s the thing about the numbers, and Sammy Brown, because the production picture maybe had him a little bit outside of what some people would have assumed as far as down-in, down-out contribution. But I want to be honest with you, because when I look at him and I watch how he plays, the right answer is to probably assess his impact on the game. And when you account for scheme context and opponent quality and the efficiency of all the stops, not just the volume of all the stops, the picture changes a little bit.

“Because he plays in a defense that had some difficult stretches last year. If you look at Clemson down the stretch, it wasn’t great. Which means sometimes he was cleaning up things that had already gone wrong, rather than stopping them at or behind the line of scrimmage, and that shows up from time to time.”

A high school Butkus Award winner, Brown earned freshman All-America honors in his debut season in 2024 while also being named the ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Brown continued to be a force on Clemson’s defense as a sophomore last season, when he racked up 106 tackles — tied for second most in the ACC — while posting 13.5 tackles for loss, five sacks, seven pass breakups, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and an interception. He was a third-team All-America selection by Phil Steele, as well as a first-team All-ACC honoree by the conference, the AP and Steele.

The 6-foot-2, 235-pounder enters the 2026 season credited with 194 tackles (25 for loss), 10 sacks, 11 pass breakups, an interception, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery over 27 games (19 starts) in his first two seasons. He is one of only 14 players nationally to post 10-plus tackles for loss and five or more sacks in each of the last two seasons, alongside fellow Clemson defender Will Heldt.

“When you watch the tape, you watch Sammy Brown — he’s a disruptor and can change what the offense can run because they have to account for where he’s at on each and every snap,” McElroy said. “… He’s occasionally in the backfield before the guard is even where he needs to be. He’s dropping underneath a route and potentially re-routing a tight end and things like that, and it’s like he had the offense memorized. So, he’s everything the raw stats say he is, but the production picture is that the unit around him might have adjusted what he was last year. Both things can be kind of true at the same time.”

Brown recently made CBS Sports’ list of the 26 “most feared” defensive players in college football entering the 2026 season, and CBS Sports is also one of the outlets that have projected Brown to be a first-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft.

Though McElroy noted that Clemson’s linebacker room lacks a whole lot of depth behind Brown, his presence alone was enough to put the Tigers in McElroy’s top 10 LB unit rankings.

Expect him to keep striking fear in opponents – and opposing offensive coordinators – during the upcoming season.

“Now the room behind him is a little bit thinner, when Luke Ferrelli decided to transfer out to Ole Miss, and you have a couple guys as kind of the next men in between Kobe McCloud and Jeremiah Alexander,” McElroy said.

“But this is kind of a Sammy Brown ranking. He is a guy that can elevate this group collectively. I think Dabo knows it. I think the entire ACC knows it — and every offensive coordinator on Clemson’s schedule that they need to know it moving forward into this upcoming season.”