Previously: Last year's profiles. S Quinten Johnson, S Daxton Hill.

Suwanee, GA – 6'0", 173
		24/7	3*, #491 overall #51 CB, #51 FL
		Rivals	3*, 5.7 rating #47 CB, #80 FL
		ESPN	4*, #274 overall #22 CB, #41 FL
		Composite	3*, #401 overall #40 CB, #51 FL
		Other Suitors	UGA, UF, ND, Stanford, Clemson, UGA, PSU
		YMRMFSPA	Brandon Watson
Previously On MGoBlog	Hello post from Seth.
Notes	Twitter. Transferred to IMG for senior year. Opening.
Film
Sophomore/Junior:

DJ Turner's recruitment was straightforward: he got a bunch of offers, loved a visit to Michigan, did his due diligence for the next couple months, and committed over the summer. His scouting is outright weird. There's a giant gap between DJ Turner's testing, some of his other testing, the subsequent rankings, and his offer list. None of this is explained. ESPN liked him enough to put him in their top 300; the two sites that tend to explain themselves had him in middling three-star territory. 24/7 downgraded him midway through the cycle from a low four-star to a guy barely inside the top 500.

On the other hand, when Turner made a cut to 11 these were the schools he listed:

Turner had offers from all these schools, and now we get into the weeds about what an "offer" means. Turner took officials to Florida and Notre Dame; he visited several other schools on his list. ND's site repeatedly brought him up despite the fact that Turner seemed wired to Michigan for a while, saying things like "ND would love to pull this off." Florida had him on campus repeatedly and had a couple of similar references in which it was implied that Florida would happily take him but Michigan loomed. Clemson made his final list of four and was an early favorite.

So at least a few of those listed offers were of the committable, we-actually-want-you-now variety. Alabama and Georgia maybe not so much. The others, yeah. Probably.

[After THE JUMP: scouting! Except... not really!]

The gap between a bunch of high level committable offers and Turner's mostly eh rankings isn't particularly well explained despite Turner playing for North Gwinnett, the state champs in Georgia's 7A—ie, largest—class. It's the kind of place where Georgia wanders by and offers three members of its secondary in one go. The other two guys ended up at Nebraska and Tennessee, not bad. Then Turner transferred to IMG as a senior so he could play corner instead of safety.

That's multiple years as a starter at a couple of the most prominent high school programs in the country, and Rivals and 24/7 have barely more scouting talk on him than ESPN does. 24/7 actually has less. Literally the only item on him as a player is from December of 2016, when he first started to get offers:

…good length …lined up at cornerback, nickel and safety during the sophomore season … does a great job of playing with his eyes and playing under control … ball skills are a strength …can improve his speed

There was a brief mention of him making a nice play at the Opening, and then nothing else. The big move down isn't explained by anything.

I'm guessing that it's about his testing at the Opening regional. ESPN's listed combine numbers for him are solidly in the "meh" department, with a 4.63 40 and several other numbers that were middling for cornerbacks. But then he went to the Opening proper and posted the #20 SPARQ amongst the 80-ish guys in attendance, all of whom are highly touted recruits. This didn't get him a bounce back up or, as we've seen, even a passing mention.

Rivals meanwhile had a brief mention of an interception return when one of their analysts caught an IMG game…

…showed a previously unseen gear on a long interception return and seemed to be a more polished and assignment-sound defensive back than he once was.

…that prompted him to call Turner "slightly underranked" as a high-ish three star. That did not result in a bump in his ranking. The only other take came from their Georgia analyst, and it was immediately contradicted by his coach at IMG:

Chad Simmons: "…nickel type of guy. I love his range and his awareness …really good ball skills …not the fastest, quick-twitch athlete … very smart player."

IMG head coach Kevin Wright: “…tremendous cover guy with the ability to play on an island without safety support. …great speed and ability to flip his hips in coverage.”

All right then. ESPN, for its part:

Lean and long. Instinctive and quick with good long field speed. Fluid and sudden with his feet and hips. Good change of direction, explosive short area burst. Uses length and hands well. Plays from a variety of alignments. Can track and transition vertically. …high upside to develop into a very strong presence on the outside

That sounds like a corner. Turner himself is insistent he is an in-your-face cornerback. He wanted to prove that so much he transferred to IMG, and in the immediate aftermath of the Georgia offer-type substance this was his coach's take on his recruitment

“He’s going to a school that will play press man at corner and calls on him to do that,” Burrell said. “DJ is going to a press-man school. It won’t be a zone team. He will go play for a program that presses you and gets right in their face with their corners on defense. Every play. Whoever shows him they will use him like that the best, that place is going to get him.”

That is literally what happened: Turner came up for a visit, Don Brown showed him he was the king of all press mavens, and Turner's recruitment was all over but the shouting.

If corner doesn't work out safety is a decent backup plan. There are a few mentions of his willingness to stick his nose in on run plays, and he has a fair bit of experience:

…safety on a team that appears to run a lot of quarters coverage, so there’s a lot of pattern matching and almost man coverage to see from him in his highlights, even though he’s not playing corner. …has the ability to be physical both in coverage and when tackling. He does a good job of reading quarterbacks’ eyes and breaking on balls thrown underneath, where he will try to undercut and/or play the ball at its highest point. …decent …

work will need to be done with Turner’s technique …needs to work on his change of direction … high-quality corner prospect who should be able to handle the demands of playing physically as a press man corner. He lacks the speed and playmaking ability of some other corners, but his physicality should make up for some of those deficiencies.

When Gwinnett had three corners the guy they moved to safety was the one who could hack it mentally:

Turner is considered the football savant of the North Gwinnett secondary. He has the highest football IQ. Even his highly competitive running mates in the Bulldogs secondary grant him that.

Brandon Brown's evaluation off of film after his junior year focuses on his brain skills:

…plays all over the place — on the boundary, in the slot and at both safety spots … multiple examples of him recognizing double moves and decoy bubble screens …smooth and quick. He makes breaking on the ball look very easy … brings all types of ball carriers down aggressively.

Turner's pretty slight right now and will have to add significant weight before he's a serious candidate at safety; since his selection was based on who had the most credible case he'd be a press corner putting him there would be a good way to cheese him off. It's strictly a down the road backup plan.

For now, Michigan will plug him in and hope he can shove people into tables full of Gatorade on the sideline.

Etc.: Okay, so he's DJ Turner II. That means his father's name is…

Son of JuanDrago and Donyale Turner

…what?!?! 1) that's not "DJ", 2) why would you go by DJ when your name is JUAN DRAGO and you're a Street Fighter character they haven't quite implemented yet?

Why Brandon Watson? Physical press coverage corner with some questions about his ability to turn and run. Even that top 20 SPARQ at the Opening didn't see Turner get out of the 4.6s in his 40. This probably feels like the kiss of death after the most recent Ohio State game but it's not intended to be one. Watson was a pretty good player for his upperclass years until he was massively out-athleted. Turner is likely to be a notch or two above Watson in that department and may be able to hang.

Jeremy Clark is another comparable. Clark was giant and Turner is not; Clark found success as a press corner after moving from safety.

Guru Reliability: Nil. No scouting!

Variance: Moderate. Some positional projection and a little uncertainty. Lot of high level experience.

Ceiling:  Moderate-plus. That 4.6 seems to put a hard cap on his upside. He might have more upside at safety if he's got a

General Excitement Level: Moderate-plus. Let's hope the offers are real and correct.

Projection: The third corner spot is extremely open so he'll get a chance to take it this fall. He probably won't get it since he seems to need a year in the weight room, but with last year's DB class currently trending badly he could be a starter as soon as next year.

Year three will probably bring another shot at a starting job with Ambry Thomas departing, and if he's not a contributor by then it's probably time to see what he can do at safety.