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Grading the 22 Recruiting Class, and What Else is needed


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On 3/28/2022 at 9:00 AM, catdaddyp said:

With Spring Ball kicking off tomorrow, I thought I’d go ahead and post my opinion on the prep signees. This is strictly going off their hudl film, as I haven’t seen any of them play in person.

 

Prep Signees:

QB - Dijon Jennings = Great athlete and very elusive. Jennings would most likely develop into a dynamic WR if QB didn’t work out. His throwing motion is inconsistent, but he flashes the ability to keep plays alive with his feet.

 

RB - Charles Kellom = Reads the cutback lanes well and runs hard. He’ll need to add mass on his frame to hold up at D1. It’s always good to recruit the home state and Kellom will add depth to the RB position.

 

WR - Bobby Golden = Smaller WR that can flat out fly. Golden is a prototypical slot receiver who can take the top off a defense. As far as year one goes, he’ll likely get some looks as a returner on special teams and may see the field at WR depending on his development and team need.

 

TE - Marquell Darnell =  Tall athlete with excellent size. Darnell was mostly split out wide in high school, so it’ll take some time to learn how to play as an in-line TE. He flashes solid hands and often out jumped DBs in high school. The potential is there to develop into a playmaker, but it probably won’t be in year one.

 

OC - Tyhler Williams = Underrated interior lineman that brings Center to Guard value. Williams has been well coached at the high school level and will be ready to contribute as a freshman. He’s very agile, strong, and uses leverage well. 

 

OG - Keylen Davis = Wide bodied interior lineman that is strong and agile. Davis brings an aggressive mindset and is looking to pancake defenders at every opportunity. He brings Center to Guard value and is the one of most physically ready OL to compete for starting minutes in the prep class.

 

OT - Ka’Marri Landers = Big bodied OL that is unusually mobile for a player his size. He’s an extremely underrated offensive lineman that brings guard to tackle value. Landing a player out of high school with Landers talent and ability is huge. Once he adjusts to the speed of D1 football, he’ll become a stalwart on the offensive line and has the potential to develop into an all MAC player.

 

OT - Jourden Hale = Massive offensive tackle that overpowered defensive linemen at the high school level. Hale exhibits excellent size, balance, and aggressiveness. He’ll need to work on his technique, and tune up his body, before he starts contributing on a consistent basis.

 

DT - Kiawan Murphy = Stout and wide bodied DT, similar in build to transfer Curtis Harper. Murphy has been well coached at the high school level and gets out of his stance quickly. He usually overpowered OL at the high school level, but also flashed plenty of agility. 

 

ILB - Bryan McCoy = Aggressive, hard hitting, inside linebacker. McCoy’s strength is in the run game. He quickly diagnoses where the ball is going and gets there in a hurry. When chasing down the play, he’s explosive upon tackling the ball carrier. However, his ability to drop into coverage and defend the pass is questionable and will need improving.

Again, another great post.  I sill still grade the high school recruits an A because of the late start and the fact that 90% of the high school recruits sign in the early period.  There are 3 recruits that I would like to comment on.

1.  Kellom - as I have stated earlier and have received rebuttals since he had only 1 other FCS offer, I expect him to be great and team with Norrils to have a great tandem at RB for the next several years.

2. Bone - this PWO had great high school stats and has run a sub 4.5 40 yard dash.  I think he will be a surprise in year 2 of his time at Akron.

3.  Paxos - first team D1 all state as a kicker.  If you watched any of the NFL playoffs, you saw how important kicking is in football.  I see that Slike is no longer on the roster, and I thought he was very good last year.  So, we will see how the kicking game develops.

I think that most of the recruits will turn out very good.  I cannot wait to see what the staff does with a whole year of recruiting.  

Go Zips!!!

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12 hours ago, bigjim said:

Again, another great post.  I sill still grade the high school recruits an A because of the late start and the fact that 90% of the high school recruits sign in the early period.  There are 3 recruits that I would like to comment on.

1.  Kellom - as I have stated earlier and have received rebuttals since he had only 1 other FCS offer, I expect him to be great and team with Norrils to have a great tandem at RB for the next several years.

2. Bone - this PWO had great high school stats and has run a sub 4.5 40 yard dash.  I think he will be a surprise in year 2 of his time at Akron.

3.  Paxos - first team D1 all state as a kicker.  If you watched any of the NFL playoffs, you saw how important kicking is in football.  I see that Slike is no longer on the roster, and I thought he was very good last year.  So, we will see how the kicking game develops.

I think that most of the recruits will turn out very good.  I cannot wait to see what the staff does with a whole year of recruiting.  

Go Zips!!!

 

Paxos is not on the roster so it appears we will have to see how the kicking game develops without him.

Before the last signing date I said the Zips roster was going to be incredibly deep with foot specialists. Now I have changed my mind. The Zips have only one place kicker on the roster - Smigel, and two punters - Hazlett and Romenick. 

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13 hours ago, bigjim said:

Great analysis.  Better than my initial post when I started this thread.  I did a follow up review and was waiting for the pain of the basketball loss go pass to post and wanted to downgrade by original grade on the transfers to a C.  But, you beat me to the punch.  I think we got the positions from the transfer portal that we needed to provide depth, and most of the players were great out of high school but have done little in college.  Outside of Jacques-Lewis and Banes, they appear to have little to no starting experience.  Even Terry only started 2 games at Buffalo last year, but he should provide depth.  I am hoping that the difference in competition allows these players to be top notch MAC players.  Go Zips!!!

Thank you for the kind words and also starting this thread! It’s great to be here and I’m excited to talk Akron football. I think the program is on the rise and watching this team will be fun.

 

It’s hard for me to give an overall grade on the prep and transfer classes because I think a lot of that has to do with talent brought in coupled with needs on the roster. I don’t know the roster as well as some at this point, but judging solely on potential, I think the staff did a phenomenal job recruiting on such short notice.

 

I wasn’t able to watch all the games last year, but from the ones I did watch not many players on defense stood out to me. I suspect it was due to a culmination of scheme, fit, talent, and coaching. I know there must be at least a handful of talented players returning from last year’s team and I expect the new staff to get the best out of them. 

 

It’s difficult to glean much from the short video of spring practice #1, but a few things did stand out. If the defense plays a 3-4 scheme, I think #6 Curtis Fann will be a perfect fit at OLB. He definitely has the size and length. During the one drill we saw of him, he looked physically impressive. Another takeaway was the size of transfer #99 Devon Robinson. He may be listed at 260, but he looks bigger than that to me. We were able to see one drill with him and he certainly has the physical ability. He’s exactly the type of player we’d want playing DE - assuming he lives up to his potential.

 

Last year, our interior DL was moved out of their gaps or blown back into the LBs far too often. To add on to that issue the LBs misread, took themselves out of the play, or flat out missed tackles more than anyone would like to see. I’m hoping the addition of players like Curtis Harper will help improve the interior line play and give our ILBs a better opportunity to make a play. The OLBs didn’t flash the type of explosiveness we want to see coming off the edge. Hopefully, another year with S&C combined with a new staff will improve that area as well.

 

On the back end, tackling was a bigger issue than it should have been and the DBs were frequently put into bad positions. They were asked to press up on WRs without much pressure from the front 7 or dropped into deeper coverage which in essence relinquished the catch. If we are going to give up the catch, then we’d better be able to make the tackle.

 

Some of the above issues won’t be fixed by anything other than recruiting more gifted and explosive players. However, all the returning players can show improvement.

 

I expect plenty of fireworks offensively this year, even with losing Gibson, Mathison, and Mumpfield. The biggest question I have is who will fit best on the OL. Moorhead’s system requires a lot of pulling and sometimes combo pulling. Not all of last year’s group will excel in that area, so which one of the freshmen will step up and snag playing time? I expect the starting 5 OL to look different by the end of the season than the group we see start the season.

 

Just by design, I think we’ll see a better use of Irons skill set and for our RBs, WRs, and TEs to have ample opportunity to make plays in space.

 

I didn’t mean to veer too far off of recruiting, so if you want to keep discussing individual players we can definitely do that.

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11 hours ago, Zipmeister said:

 

Paxos is not on the roster so it appears we will have to see how the kicking game develops without him.

Before the last signing date I said the Zips roster was going to be incredibly deep with foot specialists. Now I have changed my mind. The Zips have only one place kicker on the roster - Smigel, and two punters - Hazlett and Romenick. 

Paxos is a first team D1 kicker that is a walk on that agreed to join the Zips in the later signing period.  He will not join the team until the summer period.  I do not know why Slike is off the roster, but this addition adds kicking depth.   As I stated, if you watched the NFL playoffs, you could see how important the kicking game is to winning.  I am sorry that Zipmisses always criticizes the postings.  

Go Zips!!!!

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1 hour ago, bigjim said:

Paxos is a first team D1 kicker that is a walk on that agreed to join the Zips in the later signing period.  He will not join the team until the summer period.  I do not know why Slike is off the roster, but this addition adds kicking depth.   As I stated, if you watched the NFL playoffs, you could see how important the kicking game is to winning.  I am sorry that Zipmisses always criticizes the postings.  

Go Zips!!!!

 

Don't be sorry. I hope you are right about him joining the team in the summer period. I'm always reluctant to count my chickens before they have hatched. I'm also pretty sure that most football fans realize the importance of the kicking game whether or not they watched the NFL playoffs.

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On 3/29/2022 at 10:02 PM, bigjim said:

Again, another great post.  I sill still grade the high school recruits an A because of the late start and the fact that 90% of the high school recruits sign in the early period.  There are 3 recruits that I would like to comment on.

1.  Kellom - as I have stated earlier and have received rebuttals since he had only 1 other FCS offer, I expect him to be great and team with Norrils to have a great tandem at RB for the next several years.

2. Bone - this PWO had great high school stats and has run a sub 4.5 40 yard dash.  I think he will be a surprise in year 2 of his time at Akron.

3.  Paxos - first team D1 all state as a kicker.  If you watched any of the NFL playoffs, you saw how important kicking is in football.  I see that Slike is no longer on the roster, and I thought he was very good last year.  So, we will see how the kicking game develops.

I think that most of the recruits will turn out very good.  I cannot wait to see what the staff does with a whole year of recruiting.  

Go Zips!!!

I rewatched Kellom’s film. I’m higher on him the second go round. I don’t think he’s at the same level as Norrils coming out of high school, but I think the staff landed a good one.

 

I don’t know anything about Bone or Paxos, but I’m anxious to find out.

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