'17 UW offeree ATH Salvon Ahmed (Juanita HS)

JamesChristianson

I know that 2015's signings are just a few days away. Yet, I cannot help but to imagine the possibility of UW
soon having their best shut down CB tandem since Dana Hall and Walt B. (By "soon", I mean in 2017).

Bellevue's Isaiah Gilchrist is the consensus #1 CB in WA and #4 on the West Coast. But, Juanita's Salvon Ahmed is looking just as good at CB (and at times even more impressive than Gilchrist) on their current Ford Sports Performance (FSP) 7on7 Select team practices and drills. Ahmed closes on receivers out of the breaks very quickly. He used his quickness and his 4.43 speed to sneak up on a WR and pick off Jacob Eason during an FSP practice this past Sunday, to the raves, hoots & hollers of his FSP teammates. No wonder the Dawgs already have offered him.

Ahmed was All-King Co. 1st Team RB as a sophomore. He told me, at this point, that he is open to whatever position a college wants him to play at. And if he ends up thinking like Austin Joyner, and UW can reel in Gilchrist and Ahmed, in back to back years, then the Huskies may have themselves a Hall-Bailey-caliber tandem again.

You can see Gilchrist and Salvon respectively, doing DB drills at a January 11 FSP practice, beginning at 1:39 in the clip below:

TSP 7v7 Practice with CB's Gilchrist & Ahmed

Dennis_DeYoung

This kid gets 5-Robotos from me. There's no eval needed. You see one play, you know he can play. He's got it all: fast, instincts, change-of-direction, size...

The only question is whether his mind is where it needs to be for him to become great.

However, I assume since we offered him immediately there he's an #OKG and there's not a lot of worry in Petersen's mind about that, because Pete doesn't seem into offering guys he doesn't think have the make-up to play in his system. #calvinthrockmorton #fotuletiao #shanelemieux

AtomicDawg

I hope they are as good as truant and peters. Hall and bailey were good but they only had to cover WR's for like 2 seconds with that pass rush.

DerekJohnson

AtomicDawg said:

I hope they are as good as truant and peters. Hall and bailey were good but they only had to cover WR's for like 2 seconds with that pass rush.

The fact Hall played in the NFL for about 8 years says something.

AtomicDawg

Trufant and Peters are likely on their way to that as well assuming peters doesn't choke too many coaches. Both are likely 1st round picks.

RoadDawg55

Hall and Bailey were good, but I agree with Atomic. Hall played 6 years in the NFL and didn't even start half of those games. Trufant is well on his way to a better career and I assume Peters will as well. In terms of pure talent, Trufant and Peters are as good of college corners as one could wish for. The only negative was Peters only got to play with Trufant as a freshman so they weren't at their peak at the same time like Hall and Bailey were.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/H/HallDa20.htm

JamesChristianson

AtomicDawg said:

I hope they are as good as truant and peters. Hall and bailey were good but they only had to cover WR's for like 2 seconds with that pass rush.

I think it worked both ways...because Bailey & Hall were so good with one-on-one, and needed no back up, Lambright could unleash every other defensive player at the opposing offense. Notice many of UW's sacks or TFL were by a defender who went unblocked because the line and blocking back(s) were outnumbered.

JamesChristianson

RoadDawg55 said:

Hall and Bailey were good, but I agree with Atomic. Hall played 6 years in the NFL and didn't even start half of those games. Trufant is well on his way to a better career and I assume Peters will as well. In terms of pure talent, Trufant and Peters are as good of college corners as one could wish for. The only negative was Peters only got to play with Trufant as a freshman so they weren't at their peak at the same time like Hall and Bailey were.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/H/HallDa20.htm

Good point. And that's the line of thinking I had in my post...a tandem that was playing together at their peaks. If you're talking about an NFL career being reflective of how good they were in college, I guess I could have said Hall-Mincy (10 yrs in NFL, mostly starting), which I actually think was an even better shut down combo, and was pretty evident in the 91 Rose Bowl.

Doogles

JamesChristianson said:

RoadDawg55 said:

Hall and Bailey were good, but I agree with Atomic. Hall played 6 years in the NFL and didn't even start half of those games. Trufant is well on his way to a better career and I assume Peters will as well. In terms of pure talent, Trufant and Peters are as good of college corners as one could wish for. The only negative was Peters only got to play with Trufant as a freshman so they weren't at their peak at the same time like Hall and Bailey were.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/H/HallDa20.htm

Good point. And that's the line of thinking I had in my post...a tandem that was playing together at their peaks. If you're talking about an NFL career being reflective of how good they were in college, I guess I could have said Hall-Mincy (10 yrs in NFL, mostly starting), which I actually think was an even better shut down combo, and was pretty evident in the 91 Rose Bowl.

That's how you get a raise Christianson!

Dennis_DeYoung

@CharlesMincy was a (love-making) beast in college. One of my favorite players. For whatever reason, when I was growing up, I had a thing for defensive backs at UW. I particularly liked dudes that wore numbers under 20 for whatever reason (#just10yearoldthings).

Vestee Jackson, Le-Lo Lang, Tim Peoples, Vince Albritton, Ray Horton, J.C. Pearson... those were my dudes. That tradition continued with Dana Hall, Walter Bailey (I used to wish he would switch numbers to something in the single-digits)... I always thought we had badasses in the defensive backfield...

...

...

Then Scottie Greenlaw happened.

My life hasn't been the same since.

AEB

Keyshawn says, hi, nobody is guarding me.

DerekJohnson

Bill Stapleton was underrated, but was a hard-hitting bad ass.

RaccoonHarry

Ahmed? WTF? The Huskies are getting so desperate for talent they're recruiting ISIS?

puppylove_sugarsteel

Now lets not get carried away James.

HuskyInAZ

I don't get the obsession with this 7 on 7 stuff. IMO, it shows nothing. It would be like evaluating a kids BB talent based on how he looks at practice in a 3 on 2 drill.

If the OP really wants an opinion, post some game film (elevated, not field level), and the interested TBSers on this board will bite. Case in point......Fotu Leiatoleileiamuna.

JamesChristianson

puppylove_sugarsteel said:

Now lets not get carried away James.

I did say the word "possibility"...not getting carried away. As long as we are talking about recruiting, EVERY issue is speculation until the player(s) put on the pads and set foot in Husky Stadium on game day. So, I'm just enjoying the speculation. And I would not even bother talking about him in such a manner if he wasn't an all-conference sophomore and hadn't proved it on the field.

JamesChristianson

HuskyInAZ said:

I don't get the obsession with this 7 on 7 stuff. IMO, it shows nothing. It would be like evaluating a kids BB talent based on how he looks at practice in a 3 on 2 drill.

If the OP really wants an opinion, post some game film (elevated, not field level), and the interested TBSers on this board will bite. Case in point......Fotu Leiatoleileiamuna.

No obsession. Just an observation on how a kid can break on the ball in full speed 7v7 games and drills better than anyone else, including a 4-star recruit. That's worth noting. The only thing we don't know is how well he tackles in pads.

If I took you literally ("it shows NOTHING"), then high schools and colleges should never practice...they should just scrimmage 100% of the time to figure out their depth charts. The fact is that some drills, and some game-LIKE scenarios do show A LITTLE something...or else they wouldn't put up a depth chart BEFORE a game and announce starters BEFORE game 1 of the season. Colleges can't know how well a kid is gonna do in college until he actually plays in college after he's recruited. So, everything you know before he suits up at a D1 school has SOME value.

BTW, during hoop tryouts, they will do 3 on 2 drills as part of the process to evaluate who gets cut and who stays.

Dennis_DeYoung

JamesChristianson said:

HuskyInAZ said:

I don't get the obsession with this 7 on 7 stuff. IMO, it shows nothing. It would be like evaluating a kids BB talent based on how he looks at practice in a 3 on 2 drill.

If the OP really wants an opinion, post some game film (elevated, not field level), and the interested TBSers on this board will bite. Case in point......Fotu Leiatoleileiamuna.

No obsession. Just an observation on how a kid can break on the ball in full speed 7v7 games and drills better than anyone else, including a 4-star recruit. That's worth noting. The only thing we don't know is how well he tackles in pads.

If I took you literally ("it shows NOTHING"), then high schools and colleges should never practice...they should just scrimmage 100% of the time to figure out their depth charts. The fact is that some drills, and some game-LIKE scenarios do show A LITTLE something...or else they wouldn't put up a depth chart BEFORE a game and announce starters BEFORE game 1 of the season. Colleges can't know how well a kid is gonna do in college until he actually plays in college after he's recruited. So, everything you know before he suits up at a D1 school has SOME value.

BTW, during hoop tryouts, they will do 3 on 2 drills as part of the process to evaluate who gets cut and who stays.

Yeah, it shows nothing.

HuskyInAZ

JamesChristianson said:

HuskyInAZ said:

I don't get the obsession with this 7 on 7 stuff. IMO, it shows nothing. It would be like evaluating a kids BB talent based on how he looks at practice in a 3 on 2 drill.

If the OP really wants an opinion, post some game film (elevated, not field level), and the interested TBSers on this board will bite. Case in point......Fotu Leiatoleileiamuna.

No obsession. Just an observation on how a kid can break on the ball in full speed 7v7 games and drills better than anyone else, including a 4-star recruit. That's worth noting. The only thing we don't know is how well he tackles in pads.

If I took you literally ("it shows NOTHING"), then high schools and colleges should never practice...they should just scrimmage 100% of the time to figure out their depth charts. The fact is that some drills, and some game-LIKE scenarios do show A LITTLE something...or else they wouldn't put up a depth chart BEFORE a game and announce starters BEFORE game 1 of the season. Colleges can't know how well a kid is gonna do in college until he actually plays in college after he's recruited. So, everything you know before he suits up at a D1 school has SOME value.

BTW, during hoop tryouts, they will do 3 on 2 drills as part of the process to evaluate who gets cut and who stays.

My point is that in terms of RECRUITING VIDEOS, game footage shot from above is, by far, the best video to use when evaluating a player. The only value, IMO, of video of drills (e.g. 7 on 7) is that it allows the video to zoom in on skill/technique details, such as how are their feet, how well do they use their hands and the dreaded....how are their hips.....in a DRILL environment. This is only true do to the fact that game footage is almost always shot to cover the entire field, and can be really tough to see those details. But game footage will always show the RESULTS of those skills/techniques or lack thereof.

Hudl does a great job of this. I know they don't shoot the video, and as rough as their editing can be, they are simple, shot at the right angle (for the most part) and usually allow an evaluator enough footage to evaluate a player's game performance. And they don't have any of the soccer mom fluff, which is a complete waste of time if the purpose of the video is recruiting.

As for the 3 on 2 basketball analogy, I'm not talking about junior high sports. I'm talking about D1 sports. Please enlighten me on any major college coach who uses 3 on 2 drills as part of the process to evaluate their players or recruits. Do they use layup drills as part of that process as well?