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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — If Michigan has success up front and the defense rounds back into top 4 in college football once again, it’ll be in large part due to the return of senior defensive end Kwity Paye.
Paye has steadily improved over the course of his Michigan career, going from netting one sack as a freshman, to two as a sophomore before getting 6.5 in his first season as a starter as junior. Noted as The Athletic’s biggest ‘freak’ in its annual ‘freaks list,’ Paye is starting to get first-round NFL draft grades on the eve of the 2020 Big Ten season, so it’ll be incumbent upon him to make good on his physical prowess once Michigan takes the field.
So what’s behind his emergence? His defensive line coach Shaun Nua shared more about why Paye is poised to take off in 2020.
“First, he’s revealed who Kwity Paye is: very, very unselfish, loves Michigan, loves his teammates,” Nua said. “He wants to leave a legacy here that’s even beyond my own understanding. What he’s doing, you look around the country and you see young men opt in, opt out – and I’m not saying that’s right or wrong – but to see him not even flinch once throughout the whole pandemic, that puts Kwity at a whole different level in my book when it comes to character and the quality of man he is. But not surprised, it’s just, ‘Wow!’ I’m expecting a very good year, because he’s fricking dominating right now.”
Mentality and character can only get you so far, but there has to be a physical component to breaking out.
Nua notes that Paye has spent a lot of his offseason, not just studying technique to help him get better, but he’s also met virtually with those who are already doing what he wants to do — sacking the quarterback at the NFL level.
“He’s improved tremendously and he’s always been a good pass rusher, but he’s definitely took his pass rushing game to a different level,” Nua said. “Following the top NFL guys, whatever Zoom meetings they have, he’ll jump in, they’ll be able to talk about different stuff. Yeah, scheme can help, but if his strength is there and you keep sending him a different way – but Coach Brown has provided a lot of guys with a lot of sacks and (sent) a lot of defensive linemen to the NFL and we all see that. Hopefully – not hopefully, we will put him in the best position for him to execute and get to the quarterback.”
So with Paye being known as a ‘freak’ — something echoed by PFF’s Austin Gayle on the Locked On Wolverines Podcast — what does that mean to Nua? What does he see out of him on that front?
Turns out that, for a former Super Bowl-winning defensive lineman like Nua, it means he’s got some truly superior attributes that are rarely seen from typical players.
“It means he can physically do things that I wish I could do,” Nua said. “I lie to them so much – ‘I used to do that. I used to do this.’ But you watch it, just the weights, the balance of his and to combine that with the intelligence he has for the game, it’s just at a different level and it’s good to be part of it and to have a role to continue to enhance and get it better. But that’s what a freak is – someone who can do all the things that a majority of people can’t do physically.”
We’ll see just how good Paye can be in just over a week, when he takes the field for the first time this season at Minnesota, which is set for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on Oct. 24.