Pro Football Focus (PFF) ranked the top 10 returning linebackers in college football for the upcoming season.

Clemson’s Sammy Brown, who is getting some first-round hype for next year’s NFL Draft, landed at No. 8 on the list.

“Brown is currently projected as a top-40 pick in the 2027 NFL Draft, and it’s easy to see why,” PFF’s Max Chadwick wrote. “At 6-foot-2 and 235 pounds, he is an elite athlete who reached a top speed of nearly 22 mph, according to player-tracking data. That speed helped him break up five passes in 2025, tied for the most among linebackers in the nation.

“While Brown moves at a blur, he also plays under control. His 6.1% missed tackle rate in 2025 ranked in the 91st percentile among linebackers.”

A former five-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class and 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 107 tackles while posting 13.5 tackles for loss, five sacks, 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.

Brown played a defensive-unit-high 734 plays in 13 games last season. He had a team-best 11 tackles, including two tackles for loss, in Clemson’s win at No. 19 Louisville last year. He finished the year with a career-high 15 tackles in the Pinstripe Bowl against Penn State.

Brown 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.

The Athletic’s lead NFL Draft analyst, Dane Brugler, recently released his preseason 2027 NFL Draft positional rankings for linebackers, and he ranked Brown as the No. 1 prospect at his position entering the upcoming season.

Notre Dame’s Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa is ranked by PFF as college football’s top returning linebacker. Rasheem Biles of Texas, Austin Romaine of Texas Tech, Chris Cole of Georgia and Nicholas Rodriguez of Missouri round out the top five.