attempted scouting

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

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]