Woods is Top Returning Interior DL
By: Gavin Oliver March 18, 2025

With the 2024 college football campaign behind us, Pro Football Focus has been ranking the best returning players at each position heading into the 2025 season.

PFF recently unveiled its ranking of the top 10 returning interior defensive linemen, and Clemson’s Peter Woods tops the list, ahead of Penn State’s Zane Durant at No. 2.

As a sophomore last season, Woods split time between defensive tackle and defensive end, recording 32 tackles (8.5 for loss), 3.0 sacks and a forced fumble in 391 defensive snaps over 11 games (10 starts).

After coming to Clemson as ESPN’s No. 4 overall prospect for the 2023 recruiting class, Woods earned freshman All-American honors in 2023, when the former five-star prospect posted 27 tackles (2.5 for loss) and a forced fumble in 307 snaps over 12 games (two starts), to go along with 10 quarterback pressures, the most of any Clemson defensive tackle.

Here’s what Pro Football Focus’s Max Chadwick had to say about the 6-foot-3, 315-pound Woods ahead of his junior campaign in 2025:

Woods spent most of his sophomore season playing out of position at edge defender yet still earned an impressive 83.3 PFF grade. Over his first two years of college football, he ranks as both the highest-graded and most valuable returning Power Four defensive tackle, according to PFF’s Wins Above Average metric.

Since 2023, Woods leads all returning Power Four interior defenders with an 89.7 run-defense grade and a 14.9% pass-rush win rate. His combination of power and agility at 6-foot-3, 315 pounds makes him a nightmare matchup for opposing offensive linemen.

Before enrolling at Clemson in January 2023, Woods led Thompson High School (Alabaster, Ala.) to four straight 7A State Championships (2019-22) and finished his high school career with 260 tackles, 72 tackles for loss and 29.5 sacks.

As for the other position rankings released by PFF so far, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik was ranked as the No. 1 returning quarterback for 2025, while Bryant Wesco was tabbed as the No. 7 returning wide receiver, and Blake Miller was pegged as the No. 7 returning offensive tackle.