rashan gary short fiction

Previously: Podcast 9.0A. Podcast 9.0B. Podcast 9.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End And Friends. Offensive Line.

hello [Bryan Fuller]

On this side of the ball mass departures are more concerning, but mostly when we start talking about how defensive line spots have somewhere between 1.5 and two starters depending on how enormous the person in question is. The starters should maintain, or even improve on, last year's production despite losing two early NFL draft picks.

This would be a bold assertion except they already proved, or at least suggested, that last year.

Michigan and Ohio State are the only schools returning multiple 4-3 ends who finished in the top 20 nationally for pass rush productivity. pic.twitter.com/XNuV7KRBgL

— Aaron Resnick (@aaronmresnick) June 26, 2017

The Michigan defense should be solid against the run this season, despite the loss of Charlton and Wormley. pic.twitter.com/krPa1z6Cnl

— PFF College Football (@PFF_College) July 2, 2017

"Rebuild or reload" ain't even a question here, at least until the freshmen roll onto the field.

STRONGSIDE DEFENSIVE END: REPENT

Rating: 5

the unearthly glow came and went seemingly at random
later we discovered it was the fibonacci sequence [Smoothitron]

Yea, we took the glowing babe from the heavenly pod and swaddled him and put him in the barn. Every fortnight we would provide him a cistern of water and an animal from the flock—at first chickens, then goats, and finally whole cows. Every time we'd open the door we dreaded the unspeakable gore we assumed we would find; instead only neatly folded hides and stacked, gleaming bones. Six months in he started arranging the bones into heartfelt notes of appreciation for the animals he was slowly turning into more of himself.

After a year, he asked to play football.

[Bryan Fuller]

So! RASHAN GARY [recruiting profile] has completed his incubation period and will burst forth unto the world, writing very polite notes about how delicious opposing quarterbacks are and can he please have another. Last year Gary's impact was muted by the folks playing in front of him and the inevitable adaptation period as he tried to imbibe Don Brown's defense. Here he is vacating a gap because he didn't execute a stunt correctly:

Tsk, tsk, baby Godzilla. This wasn't exactly common but neither was it unheard of. Sometimes the entire defense would clearly be executing a line slant and Gary would go the wrong way or Gary would seemingly get a stunt/slant call that nobody else did, opening up a lane for the QB. That sort of thing made it hard to start him when Chris Wormley was wrecking tight ends and the defense as a whole was booting folks off the field in three snaps or fewer on the regular.

On the other hand, he did get just under 300 snaps. Here he is playing WDE at 290:

Gotdang, baby Godzilla. In the aftermath of the Colorado game this site marveled at what it had just seen:

That dip around the corner is not something many people have, let alone 290 pound guys. There's a certain depth at which your edge rush is effective and a certain depth where it's just opening up big lanes like we saw against UCF. Eight yards is about that cutoff, and Gary was productively getting around the corner at eight yards with frequency.

Gary's promise is that he is the man you get to do both. He can beef up and wreck a tight end or tackle as the anchor…

…and he can do that bend-around the corner thing as a weakside end. His physical package is not of this earth.

Gary followed up his absurd physical feats from high school—"He out-jumped a wide receiver, he out-shuttled a defensive back and he out-40'd a BCS safety commit" at the Opening, at 287 pounds, as a high school junior—with yet more this winter. Even DPJ's performance couldn't hold a candle to Gary:

He ran a 4.5 at 290 pounds and beat every cornerback in the L-drill. We don't have an updated bench number, but last year he put up 26 reps at 225, which is good at the NFL combine.

He began to turn that into production as well. Gary generated a pressure stat on 13% of his rushes a year ago, good for top 20 nationally and fifth in the league amongst returners.  PFF had him +13 for the season, which was a bit worse than Wormley on a per-snap basis. "True freshman is slightly worse than fifth year All Big Ten senior" is a good place to start from. If he improves as much as the average freshman he'll at least match Wormley.

If he lives up to the chatter he's shoot right past him. In addition to the obvious promise he showed as Wormley understudy is a veritable torrent of talk. Unreserved, rapturous talk. Mike McCray:

“He knows what he wants to do, and he wants to be the greatest defensive end to ever play the game. And you can see that every day when he comes to work. … Summer workouts, extra lifting, outside of practice doing extra work, he just wants to be great, and you can’t take that away from somebody if he wants it.” 

Harbaugh:

"There's some people that are just aspiring for greater things than just the adulation of somebody. And I think Rashan is that type of guy. You'd really like him. … He just works and I really think competing is his favorite thing to do. And he has the ability to be great. I don't know what more to say about that."

Allen Trieu talked to a source and returned saying that Gary is "just a machine with everything he does … always the first one there during film, workouts, what have you." Webb says the buzz is "palpable" and that "virtually every player and coach [he's] talked to has made mention of how dominant Gary has been."

None of this is a surprise. Gary is a #1 overall prospect. #1 prospects have a success rate of 100% when they don't malfease their way off the field:

Recruiting rankings are in fact gospel when it comes to the bluest of the blue chips. Aside from a few guys (Dorial Green-Beckham, Bryce Brown, Seantrel Henderson) who didn't make it for reasons other than their talent, every Rivals or Scout #1 player in the last decade has at least been good and has usually been excellent. And even Brown and Henderson stuck on NFL rosters, with Henderson starting every game as a rookie.

And Gary is not your average #1 recruit:

Whenever he showed up at a camp a trail of superlatives followed in his wake. Jamie Newberg said he was "the single most dominant player" he's seen in a decade of covering the UA game. Barton Simmons said his Opening appearance was "the best defensive line performance since the Opening's inception". Mike Farrell said he "as dominant as I've ever seen." Brian Dohn said he is "the most impressive prospect I've covered at the high school level."

Entering year two all systems are go. He's refined his body and gotten more familiar with the scheme; when the coaches reference him it is to marvel. Gary will immediately be one of the best defensive ends in the country. This isn't even controversial.

[After THE JUMP: i like him mostly for the sacks but also because i get to use my ten dollar word "ebullient"]