He’s 50lbs Undersized and Faster Than Your RB: Is This ‘Athletic Freak’ the Key to Colorado’s Defense?

Colorado’s best defensive player might be a 260-pound defensive tackle that is the fastest player at his position in the entire country.  

Santana Hopper: The Details

	247	On3	Pro Football Focus
Transfer Ranking	3 stars 87/100 #317 nationally #36 DL	4 stars 91/100 #287 nationally #19 DL	#23 nationally #4 DL
Height/weight	6’2” 265 pounds	6’1” 257 pounds	N/A

There is a discrepancy in Hopper’s transfer rankings.  

On3 and 247 have him rated as a relatively middling top 300 player(ish) from the transfer portal.  However, PFF and Pro Football Scouting Network have him ranked among the top 25 players from the transfer portal.  Another site, Saturday Blitz, ranked him the #1 DL in the transfer portal.  

So why is there a big disparity in his rankings?

On one hand, Santana Hopper is an athletic freak that was a freshman All-American at Appalachian State, was named first team all-conference in two separate conferences (the Sun Belt and the AAC), and he finished last season with a jaw-dropping 18.4% pass-rush win rate.

On the other hand, he also happens to be 50 pounds lighter than most starters at his position.

This is a fun one.  Let’s jump in.  

The Athletic Freak

Hopper is an athletic freak.  The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman ranked Hopper the #45 athletic freak in college football in 2024, ranking him higher than some random running back named Ashton Jeanty (who finished #54).  No defensive tackle in college football was clocked as fast in-game as Hopper’s 20.0 mph (the next fastest defensive lineman was 18.7 mph).  He can motor.  

[Read Feldman’s take on Hopper at https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5668892/2024/08/06/college-football-freaks-list-2024-bruce-feldman/]

Hopper bench presses over 400 pounds and squats over 655 pounds and “could have gone higher but the coaches cut him off.”  He runs a 4.70 40-yard dash with a 1.59 10-yard split.  These are elite metrics for an edge / pass rusher in college football, let alone a defensive tackle. 

2026 Transfer Portal DL Rankings (Saturday Blitz)

Rank	Player	Previous School	Transfer Destination
1	Santana Hopper	Tulane	Colorado
2	Mateen Ibirogba	Wake Forest	N/A
3	Ezra Christensen	New Mexico State	Colorado
4	Xavier Gilliam	Penn State	N/A
5	Stephiylan Green	Clemson	N/A

Hopper is as athletically gifted a defensive lineman as CU has had in the last 5 or 6 years.

However, any objective scouting report of Hopper must address his limitation: his size.  At 6’2” and 260(ish) pounds, Hopper will be significantly lighter than all of the offensive guards he will face in the Big 12.  There is a legitimate risk that in a phone booth battle against teams with downhill running attacks, he will be washed out by sheer mass.

The list of sub-280-pound defensive tackles that have excelled in college football over the last 5-10 years is a short list.  After some research, the only ones that I could find that played at or near an All-Conference level were Washington State DT Hercules Mata’afa, San Diego State’s Jonah Tavai, and Washington’s Ta’ita’i Uiagalelei.  It’s not a long list, friends, and doesn’t bode particuarly well for Hopper.

The question, then, becomes whether Hopper — an athletically gifted but significantly undersized DT — can excel at the Power 4 level.

To answer this question, we need to look at the role he will be asked to play in defensive coordinator Robert Livingston’s defense.  

The Schematic Fit

In Robert Livingston’s defense, Hopper will be a 3-tech DT.  CU runs a 4-2-5 base formation.  Up front, CU starts two interior linemen and two edges.  The defensive line positions are aligned as follows:

• 3-tech DT aligns to the strength of the formation (often the tight end side).
  • Technique: outside shoulder of the guard (B-gap player).
  • Role: be interior disruptor. 1 gap responsibility in Livingston’s defense. 
• Nose aligns in a shade on the center to the weak side of the formation.
  • Technique: 1-tech (A-gap player), sometimes angled/tilted to attack a shoulder.
  • Role: be space-eater and occupy center and at least one guard.  2 gap responsibility in Livingston’s defense. 
• 2 edge players (listed as OLBs in some Colorado materials).
  • Technique:  exact technique (5/6/7/9) depending on formation and call. 
  • Role: align as force/contain players; rush passer

Hopper will play as the 3-tech DT.  As a result, he won’t need to be a two-gap plugger.  Instead, he’ll have 1-gap responsibility, and his primary objective will not be to hold ground but to move past the pass blocker.  Hopper’s lack of mass is offset by his elite get-off and a low center of gravity.  Hopper’s 86 career pressures and 82.7 PFF pass rush grade indicate a player who will be utilize his speed to knife through the gaps before offensive linemen can secure a block.

For him to be able to play freely, however, CU will need to have at least replacement-level NTs on its roster.  I have my doubts on this point.  CU will rely heavily on NTs Dylan Manuel (300 pounds), Tyler Moore (297 pounds) and Samy Taumanupepe (375 pounds) to man the nose guard position.  Assuming Ezra Christensen (280 pounds) gets another year of eligibility, Christensen may play some nose tackle as well although I think he’s probably best suited to play the 3-tech like Hopper.  

Without a proven NT, I expect to see CU play more “bear” formation.  In the bear formation, DC Robert Livingston will walk a linebacker up to the line of scrimmage to stand over the center/A gap.  This gives CU’s defensive front 5 players on the line of scrimmage.  This puts 3 defenders on the three interior OL, as both guards and the center will be covered (by the NT, the DT and the LB).  This creates one-on-one pass rush situations on the outside for the edges and will tighten interior run lanes…but also makes the defense susceptible to play action and the tight end passing game. 

There’s always a trade-off.

Hopper Hopping Around

Hopper began his career at Appalachian State.  Upon arriving in Boone, North Carolina, Hopper redshirted his first year in 2022, appearing in only two games to preserve his eligibility while building his frame for the rigors of the Sun Belt Conference. The developmental redshirt year proved vital. When he finally emerged as a full-time contributor in 2023, he did so with an impact. Appearing in all 14 games and starting the final six, Hopper functioned as a hybrid defender, contributing at both defensive end and as an undersized but twitchy defensive tackle.

Despite being technically undersized for an interior role, he recorded 34 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, and 3.5 sacks, earning him a spot as a second-team freshman All-American from College Football News. 

The 2024 season saw Hopper ascend to the elite tier of Group of Five defenders. He was named a first-team All-Sun Belt honoree and established himself as the premier defensive lineman in the conference according to Pro Football Focus (PFF), where he finished the season as the No. 1 ranked defensive lineman in the Sun Belt with a defensive grade of 82.7. This was not merely a result of one or two big games; Hopper was consistently disruptive, leading all Sun Belt defensive linemen with 20 quarterback pressures. 

Appalachian State 2024 Performance Metrics

Metric	Value	Sun Belt Rank (DL)
PFF Overall Defensive Grade	82.7	1st
QB Pressures	20	1st
Pass-Rush Grade	79.1	2nd
Run-Defense Grade	80.1	3rd
Sacks per Game	N/A	6th
Forced Fumbles per Game	N/A	8th

After dominating the Sun Belt, Hopper decided to “up-transfer” to Tulane for the 2025 season. He joined a Green Wave program that was in the midst of its most successful period in school history, culminating in a spot in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff this past season. 

During the 2025 campaign, Hopper recorded a career-high 10.5 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks.  Analytics from PFF indicate that Hopper was the highest-graded defensive player on the Tulane roster among those with a significant snap count. He generated 39 quarterback pressures, a massive increase from his previous high at Appalachian State, ranking him near the top of all defensive tackles nationally. This ability to collapse the pocket from the interior is a rare skillset that immediately caught the eye of the Colorado scouting department.  By the time he entered the transfer portal following the College Football Playoff, Hopper had been named an All-AAC first-team selection and a Third Team All-American by PFSN.

Collegiate Career Statistics (2023-2025)

Season	School	Solo Tackles	Total Tackles	TFL	Sacks	FF	FR
2023	App State	15	34	7.5	3.5	0	1
2024	App State	18	36	8.5	5.0	2	0
2025	Tulane	17	31	10.5	4.5	0	0
Total		50	101	26.5	13.0	2	1

CU’s Most Interesting Player

As CU prepares for the 2026 season, the schematic fit for Hopper becomes a central question.  I have concerns about CU’s ability to stop the run.  Adding 2 high-level LB transfers in Leona Lefau and Gideon Lampron will help.  So will DT Ezra Christensen if he is deemed eligible.   I don’t think CU will be able to effectively stop the run againist power-running teams by just playing its base defense. It will need to use some smoke and mirrors. As a result, I expect CU to run more bear fronts and run defending stunts/twists to take advantage of CU’s lateral quickness on the defensive line.

Hopper provides elite athleticism and has proven himself now at 2 high-level G6 schools. Hopper should be an immediate disruptive force for CU’s defensive line — something that has been missing from the interior during Deion Sanders’ time in Boulder. Given his role in Robert Livingston’s defense and 1 gap responsibility, he should be able to use his speed to create negative plays for the offense. The expectation, based on his size and pressure/TFL history, is that CU will start him at DT, use him to stress protections from the inside in passing situations and to generate disruption on early running downs when he can play downhill instead of absorbing double teams.

The ultimate success of the 2026 Buffaloes may hinge on the performance of the defensive front.  In Santana Hopper, CU has a unique player that has a disruptive skillset that CU has missed under the Deion Sanders regime.  He’s probably the player that I’m most interested to watch this upcoming season due to his breathtaking athletic ability yet relatively small stature.  Can he hold up against Power 4 offensive lines? That’s the million dollar question for Hopper (literally). I wouldn’t bet against him.

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Also, CNBuff410 on AllBuffs alerted me to this article which notes that LA Rams All-Pro DT Aaron Donald played part of his career at the same weight as Hopper:

https://theramswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/rams/2024/04/05/rams-aaron-donald-weight-pounds-2018-season/73216648007