Austin Booker scouting report: Exploring the Kansas edge defender's strengths and weaknesses

One of the top 1,000 national recruits for Minnesota in 2021, Austin Booker redshirted his first year with the Gophers and saw very limited action the following year in six games (two tackles, one for loss).

He decided to transfer to Kansas ahead of the 2023 season, which quickly paid off, as he made first-team All-Big 12 and was named the conference’s Defensive Newcomer of the Year, thanks to 56 tackles, 12 of those for loss, eight sacks and two forced fumbles.

Details: 6-foot-6, 245 pounds; RS SO.

Breaking down Austin Booker's scouting report

Adonai Mitchell #5 of the Texas Longhorns is tackled short of the goal line by O.J. Burroughs #5 of the Kansas Jayhawks and Austin Booker #9

Strengths

Run defense

• Austin Booker is a playmaker in the run game, swiping away the hands of blockers at the point of attack and efficiently navigating around them to initiate first contact.
• Takes advantage of the principle of one arm being longer than two as he locks out on the edge and then is quick to jump inside to get involved on the tackle, as he sees the back cut it up the B-/C-gap.
• Able to press off linemen on the front side of zone concepts into a flat back and disengage in order to not get beat around the corner.
• Makes running backs bounce or cut back by back-dooring blockers every once in a while if he feels like he’s being overset.
• Happy to drop a shoulder into a pulling guard and condense the lane trying to be set up inside of them.
• Uses his hands as weapons to fight off blocks and create openings to the ball for himself and gets involved on a bunch of stops outside of his vicinity, turning and chasing after the ball with a passion and packs a punch when he gets there typically.
• Alert for reverses and doesn’t typically surrender contain responsibility against misdirection stuff.
• Was peeled off the edge a few times and showed loose movement skills in space to take away easy underneath completions (77.2 PFF coverage grade).

Pass-rush

• Times up the snap and blows off the ball in explosive fashion, with long strides along the arc.
• Has the burst to threaten the outside edge of tackles, paired with the vines attached to his shoulders, which give him extra room for error in trying to defeat the hands of opponents.
• Then off that, he’ll hit a nasty euro-step and slice inside in a hurry.
• Showcases impressive suddenness for that longer build and can contort his shoulders to work around bodies – For a 6’6” guy, his ability to dip that inside shoulder and circle around guys with the ghost most is impressive.
• Packs a wicked spin move, while there’s still room for improvement with the way he presents it to tackles.
• Flashes the ability to dig into the inside pec of tackles to either take the direct path to the quarterback himself or force that guy to move off the spot.
• Does well to grab underneath the arm-pit of tackles as he’s even with the quarterback and pushing them up the field, in order to create a path to the passer for himself.
• Tracks the quarterback’s movement and has the great short-area agility to run that guy down.
• Austin Booker is able to use the aggressiveness of linemen trying to sell play-action against them, by yanking cloth to pull them forward and slip by them.

Weaknesses

• Austin Booker only started one of 18 games played after an initial redshirt year and never played massive amounts of snaps (just once more than 50).
• With the lanky build, when guys are able to create some momentum in the run game, he’ll have a tough time re-anchoring so to speak, especially as he stands up and gets into boxing matches too much it feels like.
• Regularly you’ll see a false step off the ball from his fairly narrow stance, which limits his explosiveness and leads to him being fairly high.
• Not the most refined pass-rusher in the way he sets up maneuvers and efficiently finds his path to the quarterback without extensive lateral movement.
• Doesn’t rush with power consistently and can get pushed off track by advanced pass-protectors.

Austin Booker's 2024 NFL Draft projection

As a transfer who barely got to start and someone who wasn’t necessarily expected to leave Kansas as just a redshirt sophomore, Austin Booker wasn’t really on my radar in terms of 2024 draft prospects.

However, when I got around to his tape, it was a fun watch, because you’d kind of see everything from this lanky dude, even if it didn’t come with much consistency. He offers a wide array of pass-rush moves that he’ll work in, but hasn’t truly mastered any of them, other than maybe that euro-step to cross-face tackles.

You also saw that during Senior Bowl week, where he needed to better job of threatening the outside shoulder and setting up the initial move during one-on-ones, but then during team sessions there was a four-play stretch, where he dropped out once and otherwise won with three totally different moves.

Unfortunately, Austin Booker didn’t test as well as I would’ve hoped at the combine, but with his length and activity to make plays in the run game paired with the flashes of getting to the quarterback in a variety of ways, I have a tough time seeing him last too long in the third round, since he probably wouldn’t have declared this early without information from NFL teams.

Austin Booker Grade: Third round

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