Previously: Last year’s profiles. P Tommy Doman Jr. S Rod Moore. CB Ja’Den McBurrows. LB Jaydon Hood. LB Junior Colson. LB Tyler McLaurin. DE Kechaun Bennett.

Mansfield, MA – 6’5", 251
[Kara Colby/mansfieldfootball.org]		24/7:           3.63*	3*, 87, #619 overall #37 Edge, #5 MA
		Rivals:           3.28*	3*, 5.5, NR overall NR SDE, #7 MA
		ESPN:           3.40*	3*, 76, #120 East #106 DE, #9 MA
		Composite:           3.55*	3*, .8552, #935 overall #51 Edge, #6 MA
		Other Suitors	BC decommit, Pitt
		YMRMFSPA	Chris Wormley but Kwity.
Previously On MGoBlog	Hello post by me.
Notes	Twitter.
Film
Mid-Junior year highlights: Rivals workout video.

Edge day continues. We just discussed 24/7’s 2018 dive in to where edge defenders come from in the Bennett writeup, but here it is again. The upshot:

1. Average NFL pick is 6’4”/223 in high school—the guys who are 240 either get to 280 or don’t pan out.
2. Raw athleticism matters. “Combine testing is a valuable indicator.”
3. Multi-sport athletes!

TJ Guy is another Northeast edge prospect. Size-wise he’s larger than Bennett—listed at 6’4”/240 to the sites and 6’5”/251 on Michigan’s roster. Here the two scouting sites who make distinctions between DEs were flipped for Guy: Rivals was the one saying “SDE” while 24/7 put Guy in their “Edge” category.

After that, like I did on the podcast when Michigan had a run on low 3-star edges in the early pandemic, they kind of shrugged and made the obvious joke: “He’s a guy.” They knew he was basketball player, knew he was still pretty new to football, knew low-level Massachusetts high schoolers couldn’t stop him. They also knew he was committed to Boston College before Michigan came knocking.

That’s about all we knew until EJ Holland broke lockdown to fly to Massachusetts and fall in love with "the steal of the class":

Oh my God, we are all missing the boat on TJ Guy. I don't want to hear anything negative said about Guy again. This is a four-star prospect. No doubt in my mind. Guy was the talk of the workout today, and he proved to be an absolute freak show. Guy is extremely athletic for a defensive linemen his size — the dude is quick on his feet, ran stride for stride with receivers in coverage (he really did allow no completions) and terrorized 2022 offensive lineman Sully Weidman in 1-on-1's. His ceiling is off the charts. I couldn't have been more impressed with Guy today.

Could it be Don Brown left us one last Anchor?

[After THE JUMP: Guy could be a Dude]

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Steal of the class? Before he got out there and became a convert himself, Holland was reporting that Michigan was trusting their own evaluations.

Brian Dohn, 24/7’s East analyst, said something similar, was constantly on the defensive about why they had Guy ranked so low.

I think again, Sam, we talked about some kids that maybe you just tend to overlook a little bit of Michigan's class because he committed in mid-April, so it's really easy to (overlook him) and then he doesn't play in the fall because they didn't have football in New England in the fall. So, I think it's easy to forget that this kid could be really good. And you didn't get the chance to see what his development would be during his senior year.”

Guy’s coach, Mike Redding, was interviewed a couple of times after Guy emerged as a sophomore and led his team to a championship. He told the Boston Herald Guy is a “big, strong kid that can run around and make plays,” and told Maven’s Eric Rutter that “there is a lot of upside.”

“As good as he is, he is going to get better in technique. He is going to get bigger. He is going to get stronger. He is going to get thicker, so whatever you see now, I think you’re going to see a much higher level player given two or three years in a good college program with weight lifting and coaching. I think he is a diamond in the rough. There is a lot of upside there.”

The thing is Guy blew up and then kept blowing up, and up, and up.

"I think he's really got a lot of upside," Redding told MLive. "I mean, he's only got three years of football under his belt. We thought we were going to play him one way as a sophomore, but he ended up playing both ways for us and really made a lot of progress. Then this past year, he just got just got a lot bigger, stronger and more confident

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A project. Dohn when Guy committed sounded like he was talking about at least a 4-star:

He is athletic and he plays fast. He is disruptive at the point of attack and he is a menace in the backfield. He has very good body control and he shows an ability to change direction. He chases plays down from behind and he tackles well in space.

Guy is subtle with his technique. He has a swim move, and shows he can dip his shoulder and explode around the edge. He plays with suddenness and he is physical. He rarely loses the leverage battle. … He always seems balanced.

Dohn also noticed Guy has a suite of special moves—swim move, shoulder dip, inside dive. Maven’s Eric Rutter also noticed:

Guy lined up on the weak side along the defensive line, which highlights his quickness off the snap, speed around the edge and consistent drive to create pressure. Guy, who even plays with his hand up at times, has an arsenal of pass rushing that he uses to beat tackles on the outside. The Michigan commit’s explosivity and strong hands help make this happen.

But Dohn believes this is all at a basic level—college-level technique is a way’s away:

He needs to continue to work on his hands. It is sometimes too easy for offensive linemen to engage him, but because of Guy’s strength and the fact he is just more athletic than anyone he faces, his ability to disengage and re-direct down the line of scrimmage is not impacted much. In college, it will not be so easy.

And so was consistency:

The big thing with him at the high school level was you just want to see a little bit more consistency out of him. Play in and play out, make sure it's there. Make sure he continues to improve his technique.

They don’t say it, but I think 24/7 was waiting for testing numbers. Guy was planning on attending camps this summer to showcase the testing numbers he was putting up at home, but there was this whole thing.

Rivals also thinks Guy’s moves are rudimentary.

I expect him to learn how to use his hands a little bit better. Right now, he kind of gets by on his strength and speed. That’s not going to work at the next level. …

He’s going to have to really understand how to use technique to win at the point of attack and to make a difference in the backfield on passing plays. So, that’s where we’re going to see a lot of development from him — technically.

The non-professionals were more in agreement with the low rankings. Touch the Banner doesn’t expect to see Guy for awhile, giving him a “65” rating:

Guy plays too high, and he lacks technique. How much better did that technique get when he couldn’t play for the past year? I do like Guy and think he could be a good jumbo track and field athlete, a guy who could probably run pretty well, do the hurdles, and throw discus. But as a football player, he’s still a very large project.

For the record Magnus praised Kwity Paye’s bend (and motor) and thought he could play a 3-4 OLB, giving him an 81.Maize n Brew praised the swim move but had these as negatives as well as motor concerns:

He doesn’t continually pursue the quarterback in the pocket, even if he has a chance to still give pressure. Guy does play on both sides of the ball, so this could be a conditioning issue. … When he engages with blockers, he too often doesn’t use his hands to gain control. This sacrifices his leverage and makes it harder to get off blocks.

They also like his athleticism and think the rest can be ironed out as he’s grown into an interior player. About that.

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He might be a tackle. Some of the guys I have in my database who were in range of Guy’s freshman measurements were Kwity Paye (6’4”/241), Lawrence Marshall (6’4”/241), Trevor Pryce (6’6”/247), Ryan Van Bergen (6’5”/260), Glen Steele (6’5”/255), Juaquin Feazell (6’4”/245), Kerwin Waldroup (6’4”/255), and Trent Zenkewicz (6’5”/260). All of them either ended up playing inside, or some combination of inside-outside. Taco Charlton (6’6”/255) is the only freak who remained a completely edge defender. Guy premiered on Michigan’s roster at 6’5”/251. It’s likely he’s 270 or 280 in a few years.

Like Bennett, Guy’s other sport—basketball in this case—forced him to stay lean in the offseason. Just looking at him in the lead photo, 250 doesn’t seem far-fetched, and 300 is possible. Holland reported Michigan had discussed Guy possibly growing into a DT.

Michigan loves big-bodied, athletic defensive ends that can play multiple positions along the defensive line. Guy may end up being a three-technique when it's all said and done, and Brown has talked to him about that. It all depends on how he develops once he arrives in Ann Arbor. For now, Guy is a bit of a project, but he has the frame and tools to grow into a contributor.

Redding told Rutter he thinks it will happen.

He is about 250 in terms of weight, but he is very, very lean. I think he is going to end up playing 270 or a 280-pound kid that can run a little bit. I think he will be pretty versatile. He’s a strong kid. He plays basketball, so he loses some weight in the winter. … We bump him inside a little bit as a three-tech, so he’s kind of played a number of positions so people can’t double team him all the time.

Redding expected Guy to play “the strongside spot,” at Michigan, and the old coaches were talking to him about being everything from an edge to a 4i to a package 3-tech which tells you Brown expected Guy to go immediately into Anchor training—no Winoviching for you. TTB also “disagrees wholeheartedly” with 24/7’s listing Guy as an Edge, because Guy lacks Bennett’s proverbial “bend”:

…if you’re looking for a guy to get after the passer and bend off the edge, you’re looking in the wrong place. Guy does not bend well, period, and he is very stiff. He can move explosively in a straight line, but he plays high, which limits his lateral agility. He looks like a strongside end with a pretty high probability of moving inside to defensive tackle eventually.

Steve Lorenz said Guy’s like every other Don Brown SDE, except this one can grow into a tackle, and not necessarily a defensive one:

Guy is the latest in a pattern of defensive linemen Michigan has recruited under Don Brown as far as body types. Guy is a thick player who has room to build weight to eventually move on the inside of the defensive line and become a factor at the anchor spot.

247Sports Director of Recruiting Steve Wiltfong and East Coast analyst Brian Dohn have explicitly mentioned Guy possibly having a higher ceiling on the offensive line and I am inclined to agree. As is the case with a large part of Michigan's class, we have no senior film to go off of to see what kind of development he's made since his junior season.

He does play offensive tackle for his school—there’s a delightful play in the highlights where he pulls and then the force player on the backside is just no more. This doesn’t explain why Guy’s an Edge on their site however.

Rivals’ Friedman believes Guy moves to the interior of the defense.

He brings a defensive mentality to the offensive side of the ball. I expect him to remain on the defensive side when he gets up to Michigan. … I expect him to probably end up moving inside and playing more on the interior on the defensive line than I do on the edge. He’s got that frame; he’s got that quickness that really would present some mismatches for interior offensive linemen.

Dohn did note 24/7 had Guy ranked higher than the other sites, also recognized the ranking might be too low, and tried to explain it to Sam on the podcast:

And I was told by a few people in Massachusetts throughout the process, ‘you have TJ too low.’ And that's good. That's what makes it great is you have to have differing opinions. But I think he's a kid that can move inside If they want to bulk him up. Physically, he can play on the edge right now. He's a kid that has some burst and can get around the edge. He can redirect kind of move down the line of scrimmage. He's got good strength already. I think when you're looking at kids on the line of scrimmage, it's really hard to come in as a freshman and play right away just from the strength aspect of it, but I think he's a kid that has a chance to do it. I think he's got good athleticism.

Okay then.

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Plays hoops:

Mansfield up 43-31 mid Q3 after a 10-0 run, TJ Guy with the spin cycle and-1. ⁦@MansfieldboysBB⁩ ⁦@GlobeSchools⁩ pic.twitter.com/AVucZ1qrMo

— Nate Weitzer (@nweitzer7) March 1, 2020

Etc. Twitter profile is him sitting down talking to his mom, in case the Kwity vibes weren’t strong enough.

Why Chris Wormley except Kwity? It’s the Kwity story: Mom-loving lightly scouted athletic Northeast Don Brown Boston College multi-sport decommit late-to-football Anchor prospect, who came in thin but got up to the 270s and still had crazy 1st round freakish bend. Does Guy have that ability, like EJ Holland seems to think, or not, like TTB said? That’s the difference between a Paye and a Godin/Lo Marshall. That and Kwity soaked up everything his coaches taught him.

Split the difference and you get Wormley, who was a very good push rusher but never a great pass rusher. He too got knocked for motor in high school because Easy mode is boring and playing both ways is exhausting.

Guru Reliability: Very low. Played in a lower Massachusetts level, didn’t get a senior year, no testing numbers, positional uncertainty, and the scouts themselves contradict themselves.

Variance: Moderate. There really is a difference between where 24/7 has him versus Rivals and ESPN. They admit they see him likely moving to tackle (maybe offensive tackle), but the difference between a 3.6 and a 3.3 is the difference between a Paye/Jake Ryan/Uche/Clark/Upshaw level recruit and a Quinton Woods or Rondell Biggs or Shawn Lazarus who have a very defined ceiling.

Ceiling: High. You just lived through Kwity Paye. Imagine Kwity Paye if he’s allowed to play OLB and pass rush instead of having to take B gaps all the time because the DTs can’t take on doubles? Indianapolis is imagining that. And if Guy is a Kwity plus 10 pounds, you can put that at one of the tackle spots, which get a lot of single-blocks versus interior linemen, and wreck.

General Excitement Level: Moderate-plus. This is a boom or bust. I tend to trust Don Brown when it comes to scouting Anchors, but he’s usually around to see it happen. He could become an impact player at one of the DT (3-4 DE) spots too, but Michigan is recruiting at a higher level there.

Projection: A lock to redshirt since he’s only played football for three years, and everyone agrees about the thing with his technique: He just didn’t have to do anything too impressive to dominate the level he was playing at. But it would be great to start hearing Ojabo stuff about his freak athleticism, and the sooner the better. Most likely we’re looking at two or three years to train up and build up, and then we see what we have. My guess is it’s not a Kwity, but it might be a Wormley.