Background
Blake Miller grew up in Strongsville, Ohio, the son of Chris Miller, a 6-4 former high school cross-country runner and soccer player who began teaching Blake basic weightlifting techniques around age eight or nine. He attended Strongsville High School, where he became a two-way starter as a 14-year-old freshman, earned first-team All-Ohio Division I honors in both 2020 and 2021, did not allow a single sack across his final two high school seasons, won a state wrestling championship in his youth, ran track, maintained a 3.8 GPA, and held multiple weight room records. A four-star recruit ranked No. 5 in Ohio, he committed to Clemson over Ohio State, Florida, and Michigan, enrolled early in January 2022, and immediately won the starting right tackle job. He started all 54 games across four seasons without missing a single one, breaking Mitch Hyatt's school record for career offensive snaps at 3,778 and becoming the first Clemson offensive lineman to start every game played in each of his freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years without a redshirt. He earned Freshman All-American and ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2022, Third-Team All-ACC in 2023, First-Team All-ACC in both 2024 and 2025, and Second-Team All-American and Team MVP in 2025. His teammates voted him permanent team captain as a senior. He majored in financial management, and graduated in May 2025. He declared for the 2026 NFL Draft.
Physical Attributes
Blake Miller is a smooth and easy athlete. For the on-field portion of the combine, I gave him an 8.92, where he excelled at everything, but took a minor hit on his kick slide drill. He has great power in his hands and in his base. While he absorbs contact from defenders well, he still requires a recovery step or two. He also has very good balance and blocking posture that help him win.
Data and Tape Analysis
If you are unfamiliar with my OL radar charts, you can find more information here
Miller has a very impressive resume. He started every game of his college career at Clemson, playing over 3700 snaps. Unlike many other four-year starters at this point, he only turned 22 right before the combine. That is not the world's most impressive radar chart above, but he has consistently improved year on year, to where now I think he might be one of the more undersold tackles in this class.
As always with Clemson players, I must throw out the asterisk that there was something fundamentally flawed with this team last year. Miler had to exist in the ecosystem of a barely functional Garrett Riley offense and still acquitted himself very well.
One peculiarity of Miller's game is his hand usage and placement. Instead of punching straight out, he comes from wide and uses a fork-lifting type motion to land his punches. When his hands land on the right spot, they look like magnets; the defender immediately becomes useless. Though too much of the time, his hands land on the periphery of the defenders frame, and turn the battle from one where he can leverage his great head on strength, to one where he needs to engage his outer core and shoulders more than you would like. He fights to get his hands right, but it does not always happen.
His mirroring in pass protection is great. He has very quick feet that stay rooted throughout his movements. You almost never see Miller off balance and ready to be attacked by defenders. He gives up ground to strong bull rushes, but rarely allows them to endanger the pocket. Speed does not trouble him, and he has the athleticism to change his set quickly if he realizes what he thought he was going to see at the snap changes.
In the run game, I feel like he could work in either scheme. He moves from doubles into the second level quickly and effectively, using his solid play intelligence to get to the most important open defender. On the move, he can build a head of steam and get solid displacement as well. Directly from the snap, his engagement with DL is inconsistent in the push he gets.
Grade and Outlook
I really like Miller. He has a lot of the athletic traits I look for in an OT and requires only smaller tweaks to his game to unlock his potential upside. That upside is higher than some think, and I could see him in a 5% scenario reaching All-Pro status, but more likely tops out a top 10 RT.
Grade: 6.3 (Late 1st Rounder / Early 2nd Rounder)
