sound mind sound body

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Sound Mind Sound Body 2016: OL/DL
Seth •

Part 1: Ace covered the WRs and DBs, i.e. the fun part. His writeup is here.

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2017 OL commit JaRaymond Hall [Eric Upchurch]

Last Friday a group of us attended Sound Mind Sound Body at Wayne State University. Their main football field had the QBs, WRs, and DBs, and Ace & Adam covered that. Two practice fields were then occupied by OL/DL and RBs/LBs respectively, so while watching one I couldn't watch the other. I spent most of my time trying to scout the linemen. Actually, because the roster sheets were organized alphabetically by first name instead of number, I spent most of my time scanning random numbers to figure out who a certain player was that caught my eye.

Eventually I settled for watching whoever Drevno and Mattison were talking to.

A few notes/observations:

  • Luigi Vilain was scheduled to appear but didn't make it. Some of his teammates were on hand. As Ace mentioned Antwuan Johnson was dinged up early so we didn't get to scout him. I thought 2017 Cass Tech OL target Jordan Reid would be there—he was on the roster—but I couldn't find him.
  • The SMSB staff are great.
  • With lineman drills no pads is a major advantage for defensive linemen, especially for quick little guys. The most successful blocks were often borderline holds, unless a lineman put a guy in the dirt, whereupon everybody clapped.
  • I learned a lot about why people who cover a lot of camps fall into the same vague observations. Unless you've been at this for way way longer than I have, the most apparent thing is how some guys look like amazing athletes and the rest look like your larger friends from high school. If you're there to scout just one guy in a group you'll spend most of your time marveling at how physically different he is while he's standing in line. Beyond that you can see foot speed and who got yelled at by coaches, who invariably coached "pad level" and "footwork."
  • If you haven't gathered by now these observations are going to be of dubious value to you.
  • Don Brown is a very INTENSE man.

      • OFFENSIVE LINE:

    OT COMMIT JARAYMOND HALL

Hall needed no shuffling through pages to identify; every time he took a rep the chatter died down as coaches and players paid attention. Drevno was giving Hall a lot of coaching between reps and ultimately had him doing a few things during drills that other linemen weren't, like keeping his hands nearly touching like in prayer while doing the shuffle. JaRaymond was taller than all but the one really really big kid.

Hall is super light on his feet and built on the lean side; Jason Spriggs was the comparison I made in my mind, and not just because I had just come from melting into a fanboy upon meeting Kevin Wilson.

The size thing was kind of an issue against bigger DL the few times he caught one, but he was credited by the coach running the drill (a Penn State grad assistant, who was Harbaugh-level into it all day) for using his space. Contrary to just about every other OL, the skinny unpadded little DEs couldn't rush by him. He just took 'em wide.

If I was creating an NCAA player I'd go heavy on the acceleration, lighter on the brute stuff. Also if I could edit hand size I'd put them way up there. Most players wore gloves but Hall didn't. I think he could curl his fingers over mine. I am running out of usefulness obviously so I'll move on.

[After the LEAP: Seth tries to scout more things that pro football coaches get wrong most of the time. Got that grain of salt? Okay then HIT THE JUMP]

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23

Sound Mind Sound Body 2016: WRs/DBs
Ace •


KJ Hamler dominated the one-on-one portion. [Bill Rapai]

This year's Sound Mind Sound Body camp at Wayne State featured several of the state's best high school players, as well as some top out-of-state talent. Adam and I spent most of Friday afternoon watching the receivers and defensive backs—Seth covered the linemen on another field—and we saw impressive performances from a couple Michigan targets. Before running down the players who stood out to us, a few general notes/caveats:

  • At a camp this large, even the top prospects only get a handful of reps in one-on-ones, so a couple good or bad reps can really skew the perception of a player. Drills were taking place on both sides of the field, too, so I didn't see every rep each WR/DB took. I'll note which players got more reps in than others that I saw.
  • I mostly focused on the established prospects since there were usually two one-on-one matchups occurring simultaneously and I was trying to take notes between reps. If a prospect who stood out to another site isn't mentioned here, that's more a reflection of my focus than anything else.
  • Donovan Peoples-Jones was listed on the initial roster but chose to attend the Rivals Five-Star camp in Atlanta instead. 2018 commit Leonard Taylor, who was supposed to work out at tight end, was also a no-show. 2018 commit Antwuan Johnson attended but dinged up his ankle and sat out most of the day.

With that out of the way, some evaluations:

2017 MI WR/DB KJ Hamler (M Offer)

Camp settings are ideal for Hamler, whose quickness and precision make him nearly impossible to contain in unpadded one-on-ones. He was easily the quickest wideout going through the three-cone drill, and that agility and foot speed was apparent in his route-running. Defensive backs had trouble getting their hands on Hamler, who got separation on nearly every rep he took and caught everything he could get his hands on. His route-running is advanced for a high school prospect; combined with his athleticism, he's hard to slow down.

Hamler is undersized, to be sure. He makes up for much of that deficiency with his ball skills—he's got great timing and can go up and get it. That showed up as much on defense as it did on offense. Hamler took some reps at cornerback, and while he's not at technically sound there as he is at receiver, he stayed step-for-step with his marks and came away with a couple interceptions, including a spectacular leaping pick on his final rep. Hamler also showed a high level of competitiveness; he took more reps than anyone else as best I could tell, and on a couple occasions I noticed him drop to the turf to knock out a quick set of push-ups when he was waiting for his next rep.

There were a couple moments when Hamler's size hampered him. Still, from what I saw he was the best performer among the WR/DB group, and only Ambry Thomas came close to matching him. Even though Michigan took a number of quality slot-types in the 2016 class, I'll admit I'm disappointed they aren't pushing harder for Hamler. While he'd be an ideal fit in a spread, I think he could be successful in any offense.

[Hit THE JUMP for reports on Ambry Thomas, Jaylen Kelly-Powell, and more.]

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121

Think Of Hugh Freeze's Children
Ace •

Sound Mind Sound Body provided exposure for thousands of area players. [Rapai]

The NCAA ban on satellite camps—and coaching at camps away from campus, period—is an ill-considered, haphazard measure that serves the selfish interests of a select few millionaires while hurting the exact people the NCAA is supposed to serve: the student-athletes. That's been the near-universal reaction from current players, recruits, parents, and media members alike in the wake of the ruling.

Khalid Hill, Jourdan Lewis, and Moe Ways, all of whom participated in the Sound Mind Sound Body camp, spoke out against the ban on Twitter over the weekend. Hill had some particularly strong words for the NCAA:

Of greater concern to, say, the SEC coaches who pushed for the legislation, current prospects and their parents are also outraged. Five-star Cass Tech senior Donovan Peoples-Jones wrote a note about how much SMSB helped him and other local prospects, many of whom didn't have the opportunity to attend on-campus camps, get noticed by college coaches:

Recruits and coaches at Bob Jones and Prattville high schools in Alabama, two of the planned stops on Michigan's summer camp tour, also lamented the lost opportunity:

Bob Jones coach Kevin Rose anticipated the camp at his school would draw about 500 players.

"I was really disappointed because, in my opinion, it's a lost opportunity for high school kids and high school coaches, especially that kid that's maybe not quite tall enough to make the measurables," Rose said. "We have a couple of guys that I think in a satellite camp setting could make a case for themselves, and obviously you're not going to drive to Ann Arbor or Michigan from Madison, Alabama. If they come to you, that's a great opportunity for kids and coaches. ... From our perspective, we feel like that was something very positive for high school football in north Alabama."

While the efficacy of change.org petitions is up for debate, it's very notable that one of the most-signed petitions calling for a reversal of the ban was started by Rozlyn Peoples, Donovan Peoples-Jones' mother. It's already surpassed 5000 signatures.

On Friday April 7th The SEC, ACC, PAC12, BIG12, Sunbelt and MWC conferences voted not to allow FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) coaches to work camps at sites away from their campuses.  This new rule will restrict and reduce educational opportunities for high school students and their parents by lowering the opportunities for youth to showcase their athletic talents and earn a college scholarship. If college coaches are only allowed to work camps on their campus there will be far less scholarship offers to high school students in the summer of 2016.  This will in turn have a disproportionate impact on parents in the class of 2017 because:

-1.  The effective immediate date of the NCAA ruling means they will not be able to see multiple college coaches the summer prior to their last year of high school

-2.  The conflicting institutional camp schedule makes it impossible for students to attend multiple camps

3.  The majority of students and parents that this affects come from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.

Fox Sports' Stewart Mandel penned an open letter to the NCAA asking for them to reverse course; they could do so before the end of the month:

On April 28, you will decide whether to approve a proposal passed late last week by the Division-I Council that bans FBS football coaches from conducting or working at camps and clinics outside of their program's regular facilities -- a.k.a. satellite camps. I realize that in most instances your role is primarily to rubber-stamp legislation, but in this instance, I'd urge you to rescind this ill-conceived measure.

It badly fails the one constituency your organization purports to protect -- the athletes themselves.

I wouldn't normally hold my breath for the NCAA to do something right, but the outcry in this instance has been remarkable. In one corner, you have the athletes (current, future, and former), their parents, high school coaches, media members, and a decent chunk of the NCAA's member institutions. In the other corner, you have this:

Hugh Freeze is paid $4.9 million per year to coach football in an area with enough talent that he has little need for satellite camps. He doesn't want to work harder for those $4.9 million, which is fine; that's his prerogative. What's not fine is he doesn't want anyone else to be allowed to provide these opportunities, which would probably cause him to have to work harder to avoid falling behind, and won't someone think of Hugh Freeze's children? Just, uh, while you do so, don't think about all those other children—the thousands trying to earn scholarships to attend college because their parents don't make $4.9 million per year.

At least he admits he's selfish, I guess.

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