After two seasons as the best player on the Tennessee defense, star edge rusher James Pearce Jr. is taking his talents to the next level. The two-time All-SEC selection, a projected first-round pick, declared for the 2025 NFL Draft with an announcement video via social media on Wednesday night, opting to turn pro after his junior season with the Vols. After he was getting projections as the No. 1 overall pick for 2025 following his breakout sophomore season, Pearce’s stock appears to have slipped a little bit during the course of the 2024 season, but he still has a very strong chance to give Tennessee its first first-round pick since offensive tackle Darnell Wright went 10th overall to the Chicago Bears in 2023.

Pearce emerged as one of the best pass-rushers in the SEC over the past two seasons, and with players who can affect and harass all of those high-paid franchise quarterbacks such a premium in the NFL, the 6-foot-5, 243-pounder will bring coveted attributes to any team looking to boost their defense via the draft.

In 44 games over three seasons with the Vols, Pearce totaled 71 tackles, 29.5 tackles for loss and 19.5 sacks – tied for the 10th-highest career total in program history alongside Darrell Taylor – to go along with three forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, two pass breakups and one interception, which he returned for a touchdown against Iowa in the Citrus Bowl to end the 2023 season.

ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper had Pearce at No. 23 overall and No. 3 among outside linebackers on his updated big board earlier this week, though fellow ESPN analysts Jordan Reid (No. 15) and Matt Miller (No. 14) are higher on him. Four recent CBS Sports mock drafts have Pearce going 15th, 11th, 11th and 11th. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler had Pearce as the 19th pick in his latest mock draft.

Writes Kiper: “I see a lot of speed off the edge, and he does a nice job mixing up his pass-rush moves to keep offensive tackles on their heels. Pearce could still add weight to his frame. But even at 243 pounds, he shows the ability to win with power. And when asked to help in run defense, he has the quickness to make plays in lateral pursuit.”

Pearce exploded onto the scene during that sophomore season that saw him rack up 14.5 tackles for loss and 10 sacks in 13 games.

He started out slow in 2024, but the production was in the same ballpark this season as Pearce totaled 13 TFLs and 7.5 sacks. He actually totaled more quarterback pressures in 2024 (55) than in 2023 (52) per Pro Football Focus. During the regular season, his 52 pressures led the SEC and ranked fifth among Power 4 edge rushers.

Pearce had the third-most pressures in the SEC behind only the Alabama duo of Dallas Turner (the No. 17 overall pick this year) and Chris Braswell (No. 57) in 2023, when he tied for the conference lead in sacks and ranked second in TFLs, was the league’s highest-graded defensive end (90.9) and his national ranks were fourth in overall grade and third in pressure rate (21.3%) and pass-rush grade (92.4) per Pro Football Focus.

SEC coaches tabbed him as a first-team all-conference selection in both seasons with him earning second-team All-SEC honors from the Associated Press in 2024, when he also was a semifinalist for the Bednarik Award, the Lombardi Award and Walter Camp Player of the Year.

Pearce closed his Tennessee career with two tackles for loss against Ohio State in the College Football Playoff, and earlier in the season he had a six-game streak of being involved in a sack and an eight-game streak with at least a half-TFL. He had 1.5 sacks against Alabama in October’s win and two against UTEP in his final game at Neyland Stadium. Pearce broke out of a mini-slump with a half-sack in the win at Oklahoma and then had nine tackles, two TFLs and one sack in the loss at Arkansas before sacks against Florida, Kentucky – a crunching hit that knocked Wildcats starter Brock Vandagriff out of the game – and Mississippi State continued his disruptive streak.

The Vols don’t beat Florida this season without Pearce as he made a game-saving play with a forced fumble on a quarterback sneak to deny the Gators a golden scoring opportunity in the first half, and he had seven tackles and one TFL in the win to earn SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week honors after the overtime victory.

“It’s just my job to play in the scheme of the defense,” Pearce said during a rare media availability appearance after the game. “Coach is going to dial up what we need to win, and we’re just going to get after it as a team on the D side. … Numbers are cool, but you would like to win more than you’re putting numbers on. I said that before the season even started. It’s hard to not to be tender about things you love, but tender is not the way to go.”

Per Pro Football Focus, Pearce had at least four pressures in seven of 13 games with his biggest performances against Alabama (10), Arkansas (seven), Oklahoma (seven) and Kentucky (six), and he had three against Ohio State and two against Georgia.

Going back to 2023, Pearce previewed what was to come with two sacks in the season opener against Virginia, one against Austin Peay and two tackles for loss against Florida. He kept the momentum going with two sacks in a dominant showing against South Carolina, two TFLs with one sack and five hurries in another dominant performance in the win against Texas A&M and a strip-sack against Alabama. Pearce single-handedly swung that bowl victory against Iowa with a strip-sack near the goal line to set up a short touchdown drive and his pick-six in the second half.

Pearce was a big recruiting win in the 2022 cycle as Tennessee got him to sign in December after he’d considered taking his recruitment, which didn’t include much in the way of publicity or visits, past the Early Signing Period. He was rated a four-star prospect and ranked the No. 173 overall player and the No. 18 edge in the class by 247Sports coming out Julius L. Chambers High School in Charlotte. Pearce didn’t land his first Power 5 scholarship offer until March 2021 and wasn’t rated by 247Sports until August, when he started out as an 88-rated three-star.

After summer visits to South Carolina and Missouri, the Vols got him on campus for three games during the 2021 season, and it paid off as he signed with the Vols even after adding offers from Georgia, Florida and others during his senior season.

“(I liked) everything about it — the brand of Tennessee, just everything,” Pearce told GoVols247 after he signed. “The brand, the history — everything of it. … With the history of Tennessee, if you go to Tennessee, there’s a lot of opportunity. (You can) compete every year, and it’s a chance to be great.”

Pearce enrolled at Tennessee in the summer of 2022 and played primarily on special teams as a freshman before blossoming into an outstanding defensive player who might not have to wait very long to hear his name called in the NFL Draft in April.