When Kayvon Thibodeaux burst onto the scene as one of the best pass rushers in college football, he sharpened his skills by going against the top offensive tackle every day in practice — Detroit Lions left tackle Penei Sewell.
Sewell, the Lions’ first-round pick in this year’s draft, and Thibodeaux, a potential No. 1 overall pick in 2022, spent one season together as teammates at Oregon.
“He’s very athletic, so he gave me a run for my money come practice days,” Sewell said Wednesday. “It was a battle.”
Thibodeaux had an Oregon freshman record nine sacks and 14 tackles for loss in 2019, when Sewell won the Outland Trophy as the nation’s best lineman.
This year, Thibodeaux has four sacks and 7.5 tackles for loss in four games.
He is ranked the No. 1 prospect in next year’s draft by ESPN analyst Todd McShay, and Lions general manager Brad Holmes was in attendance for his two-sack game in a win at UCLA last week.
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Sewell, whose brother Noah plays for Oregon and is a potential first-round pick, said he talked briefly to Holmes about his trip.
“He just told me he was out there and said little bro’s pretty big and that’s about it,” Sewell said.
As for Thibodeaux, while some scouts believe he’s a better athlete than football player right now, Sewell said he sees his former teammate’s skill set translating to the NFL.
“Shoot, off paper you can already see he has it all,” Sewell said. “And I think the message I will pass on to him is the same thing that I kind of went through is technique. You just got to lock into those things and that will make you better as a player, make you successful.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.