Julien Simon, 4* 2021 ATH, Tacoma (Lincoln), WA (Offered 6/22)

RaceBannon · January 2023

NEsnake12 said:

DoogerMcFarland said:

Doogles said:
Checked to see the QB in front of Huard in his class and it was Quinn Ewers with the highest rank ever. He was given a perfect 1.000

Now he's 0-1 vs. UW.
Wasn't Caleb Williams ahead of Huard? And then Ewers became the #1 when he reclassified?
The top 10 from that class has had...
-3 hits: Caleb Williams, JJ McCarthy, Drake Maye
-2 meh: Quinn Ewers, Jaxson Dart
-5 ??? who haven't earned real playing time: Huard, Vandagriff (UGA), McCord (OSU), Thompson (UO), Garcia (MIA)

McCord is the heir apparent at tOSU for next year. Huard had a big Penix in his way the year he should have would have started. But not beating out Morris...

Will be interesting to see who takes over at Georgia. They don't need a superstar just a winner

Thompson, like Huard had a portal guy take his shot which I guess speaks volumes for both of them

Fishpo31 · January 2023

I am not a football TBS, but I was a baseball TBS. Grades of straight physical tools (underwear olympics) gets you only so far. I think this is all the recruiting services do, based on their success / fail rate. The combines and 7-on-7 stuff max this stuff out, but doesn't account for aptitude, heart, and balls (AKA: does his dick swing).

I recently heard an ex-big leaguer say, "Spin rate? Launch angle? What is the metric for heart and balls? That is what makes the player". I concur...

This has been happening in baseball for years. The parents pay all the money for "training", and the trainers train them to show out in a workout. They are also trained on what to say to coaches and scouts. They know how to work out, to "show numbers", but don't have the awareness and feel to play the game.

Almost all of these guys are physical specimens. Athleticism off the charts. What is the separator? Head, heart, balls. A lot of these guys are afraid to make mistakes. It doesn't show in high school, but gets exposed in a hurry in college.

chuck · January 2023

I'd call the TBS evals a little more valid @Fishpo31 except for this factor: the number and "quality" of offers overrides even the underwear olympics and a lot of those offers are sent out by programs like Texas and Oregon when they haven't even fully evaluated the prospect visually or personally. Once a kid has a couple of offers from schools like that others jump on board and the next thing you know the kid is a 90+ level, 4* recruit or rises from a fringe 4* to a fringe 5*. The flaws in the system build on each other.

Fishpo31 · January 2023

chuck said:
I'd call the TBS evals a little more valid @Fishpo31 except for this factor: the number and "quality" of offers overrides even the underwear olympics and a lot of those offers are sent out by programs like Texas and Oregon when they haven't even fully evaluated the prospect visually or personally. Once a kid has a couple of offers from schools like that others jump on board and the next thing you know the kid is a 90+ level, 4* recruit or rises from a fringe 4* to a fringe 5*. The flaws in the system build on each other.

No question...I have spent a good deal of my career trying to teach big, strong, fast kids to be baseball players, with very limited success. There are a LOT of pro prospects walking around, tools-wise, but they can't play the game.

Carpet bomb offers by the big boys have really screwed the system. Kids that need a year or two to develop don't want to sit, "Because I'm a 5 star", while 3*, 2 time walk-on, JUCO-going Stetson Bennett wins 2 natties. Yeah, it wasn't all him, but he was a key.

Pete had some flaws (DUH!), but I always respected that he didn't carpet bomb, and had to lay eyes on a guy before offering him. If they all did that, the rankings would be a lot closer to reality.

theknowledge · January 2023

chuck said:
I'd call the TBS evals a little more valid @Fishpo31 except for this factor: the number and "quality" of offers overrides even the underwear olympics and a lot of those offers are sent out by programs like Texas and Oregon when they haven't even fully evaluated the prospect visually or personally. Once a kid has a couple of offers from schools like that others jump on board and the next thing you know the kid is a 90+ level, 4* recruit or rises from a fringe 4* to a fringe 5*. The flaws in the system build on each other.

With most 3*, bottom half of the class kids that UW offers I look at who else offered them. If Utah, Iowa State, Iowa, KState, TCU or Baylor offered I usually considered the kid a pretty good risk. All those universities need to comb through and evaluate their tails off just to be competitive. Kansas under Liepold and Illinois under Beilima are two new programs I use as indicators. The bottom half of Pete's classes were full of kids like that. Sarks was notorious for wrangling players away from the MW and Big Sky to fill out a class and unfortunately the top half of Lakes last class pulled kids away from the likes of Arizona and Cal. Much like Pete, Deboer seems to be filling the bottom half of his classes with the kind of grinders that competitive, location disadvantaged programs seem to be interested in. Obviously KDB needs a few more legit blue chips at the top of his classes or UW will morph into being Iowa and you can kill me now if that happens. The 2024 haul will be very interesting.