Just three weeks into the college football season, the question isn't so much whether Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett will break Jadeveon Clowney's SEC record for sacks by a freshman.
Barring injury, it's just a question of how long it will take.
Garrett has already recorded 5.5 sacks in the Aggies' first three games, just 2.5 sacks short of Clowney's SEC freshman record of eight. At his current pace, it will take Garrett just five games to do what Clowney, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2014 NFL Draft by the Houston Texans, needed 13 games to accomplish in 2011.
"I'll be surprised if he doesn't smash Clowney's record," Mark Snyder, TAMU's defensive coordinator, told FOX Sports.
Like Clowney, Garrett was one of the nation's elite recruits out of high school and has been plugged directly into the starting lineup in his first year on a college campus. He already has more sacks than any Aggies player recorded all of last season. And while most of that production has come against outmanned opponents in Rice and Lamar, he didn't exactly disappear against TAMU's toughest opponent to date, South Carolina, with one sack and two quarterback hurries against the Gamecocks.
Talk about instant impact.
"I didn't know he had this kind of pass rush ability in terms of his power, speed and these counter moves," Snyder said, per the FOX report. "It's pretty freakish. He's so twitchy. He's not just some straight-line (fast) guy. He can dip and rip, and bend the corner like I've never (seen)."
Garrett (6-foot-5, 255 pounds) has already tied the school record for sacks by a freshman, shared by former NFL defensive tackle Sam Adams and current New York Giants defensive end Damontre Moore.
The next offensive line Garrett faces? That of SMU, which has already allowed 13 sacks on the season. In just two games.
Unless the Mustangs double-team Garrett as part of the game plan, Clowney's record might not even last another week.
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread*.
