BR: QB Easton Bruere
I don't normally do Bleacher Report , but this came up in my feed, and I thought it was interesting since it also talks about Zach Gentry.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2322488-the-best-football-prospect-n…
Evidently, this kid is a 2015 6'3", 200lbs QB that three for 4500 yards, 49 TDs and 6 INTs this season - which is pretty indicative of his body of work as a starter - the season wasn't an aberration. Kid has a 4.0 this year and a 3.75 Cumulative.
However, he has zero scholarship offers.
I recall in the comments on Zach Gentry's film, some of the gurus here were saying that the competition was ummm.... not so good at football. Is that the only thing keeping colleges away here? I know it's late and if you're poorly exposed, a lot of schools are filled up, but I have a hard time believing some school wouldn't carry an extra QB with his measurables and performance.
I'm wondering if someone who follows recruiting closely knows something the BR report isn't sharing? It sounds like he hit the camps, so even though he plays in NM, he should be well scouted. Is there a hitch in his game?
January 29th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
I think the explanation I saw on /r/cfb was that this year he looked great, but maybe not before?
January 29th, 2015 at 10:37 AM ^
I skimmed the article, but I believe he had either 49 touchdowns or 59 touchdowns last year. So he must have looked pretty good as a junior, too. I haven't watched video of him yet, but it's interesting nonetheless. Obviously, we were all discussing recently how poor the New Mexico talent level is.
January 29th, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
I believe that number was split over his sophomore and junior seasons. So at least part of the story here is that before his senior year, he was good but not world-beating against poor competition. And I'm not sure how much he camped until last summer.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
There has to be something missing as this sounds a lot like sour grapes. If you're a player you'll get found and there're enough FCS schools around that he should be fine if this was an issue.
Go to Junior College and try to get noticed again and fix the holes in your game or try to walk-on somewhere, maybe not what he wanted but sometimes life doesn;t allow you to pick Door #1.
There has to be something else going on here.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:29 AM ^
January 29th, 2015 at 11:46 AM ^
Exactly, no reason why he can;t go to a JC and then see what happens. I knows there's a couple in Arizona and a bunch in Texas he could try to play at. Snow JC in Utah is also(kind of) close by. Lots of options, just not maybe the one he wants.
January 29th, 2015 at 1:53 PM ^
Uh, I believe that is now spelled A-A-Ron Rodgers. kthxbi.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
Here's a similar MacPreps article for those who don't want to BR.
The New Mexico theme is interesting.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:16 AM ^
At least -- give him a look. There may be some things 'behind the scenes' that are not going to be 'forth coming at this time.'
NDSU I am sure would be quite a place to land (Fargo)!
January 29th, 2015 at 10:20 AM ^
Paging Dr Magnus.
Paging Dr Magnus.
Diagnostic evaluation needed STAT.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
You would think a kid like that, even if they weren't telling the whole story, would get a scholarship offer from some school that is OK with taking a flyer on a player with potential.
Is he willing to play other positions? If so, he seems to have the body and speed to play TE or something of that nature.
EDIT: As a non-amateur scout (I don't think I have even that level of skill) it looks like he has a very low release point.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^
And the ball is a little slow - floats a little.
Still, it gets there with very good accuracy - and the release point you can coach. He's probably not an absolutely top tier guy, but he's at least a Minny/Iowa level, I think.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
I thought camps and all-star games existed for kids like this to show his stuff on a bigger stage.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:27 AM ^
I'm sure Texas will take a flier on him. They could use all the QBs they can get their hands on. lol.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ^
January 29th, 2015 at 10:38 AM ^
What unranked kids are being recruited by Harbaugh?
January 29th, 2015 at 10:52 AM ^
Markel Bush visited January 23rd.
My quick googling showed no ratings on the major services, but I could have missed one.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:56 AM ^
Yeah...I don't really consider Michigan as actually recruiting someone unless they're offered a scholarship. You can use official visits on preferred walk-ons.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:01 AM ^
I wasn't adding that ingo to refute what you said, just adding a bit of info that the previous post might have been referencing. Without an offer, I'd call it evaluating more than recruiting as well.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:07 AM ^
This is just my personal take, but I think he is referring to The other QB we were looking at w/Gentry, the 2-star Corner we were "pursuing", the addition of Ulizio, and now this kid? Idk, I don't buy it because we have hit the trail on just about every National Prospect that is or isn't available.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:48 AM ^
It almost seems like the recruiting services have gotten so big that they no longer feel they need to scour the nation and evaluate kids. I think they rely heavily on their camp circuits and don't bother much with kids that don't compete in those venues unless the kid is an absolute star, i.e. Jadeveon Clowney would never need to go to a camp and would still be considered a 5-star recruit. Some areas just aren't scouted very well due to the historical lack of talent.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:44 AM ^
that get overlooked. The recruiting services have gotten bigger, so they actually employ more scouts in the field. Scout has him in their database. They even have video of him. He's on Hudl too.
The fact that he has no offers is a lot more meaningful than any rating. The NM schools take a lot of in-state players. You have to wonder why they don't appear to be interested. Surely they know all about his HS career.
January 29th, 2015 at 1:55 PM ^
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2014/10/24/michigan-state-co…
January 29th, 2015 at 10:40 AM ^
Once again, most of it boils down to New Mexico HS football. I have actually coached against this kid, last year as a junior. We were a classification lower than his, and we lost in the last minute of a tough game. The kid impressed the hell out of me. I honestly feel like he was the best QB in the state of NM. I realize some will disagree, but after game planning for EB and watching Gentry, I felt like EB and Rio Rancho were just the better player and team. Last season, Rio Rancho had some serious speed and talent at WR and TE which may have led some scouts to question EB's talent. However this year, those doubts should have been erased. Regardless, the kid's got talent, and just like I said about Gentry, coming from NM, I just don't think he is D1 top level football. I think he needs time and seasoning. Just my opinion though.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:07 AM ^
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January 29th, 2015 at 11:29 AM ^
Sorry, should have clarified. I think Gentry can be a big time player. It's just going to take a couple of years and a lot of hard work. Same thing for the Bruere kid. They can be, but I dont see them as capable of stepping on the field for their true freshman opener as the starting QB. Long ways from playing on Saturdays for a major D1 school and Friday nights here in NM.
January 29th, 2015 at 8:18 PM ^
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January 29th, 2015 at 11:45 AM ^
January 29th, 2015 at 10:45 AM ^
I'm surprised he doesn't have any BCS offers. I'm not surprised he doesn't have P5 offers.
He has a lot of tools that make him a good HS QB but don't translate that well as you move up in skill level. Long, looping release. Doesn't throw with great velocity. Puts balls in tight windows at the HS level that won't be there at the next level. It's a lot of things that make him look like a good HS QB, but maybe not really a great prospect going forward.
I'm a bit surprised neither of the New Mexico schools have looked at him, or a program about that size. But he doesn't have any tools that jump out and say "this is a guy that translates to the next level". He may, he may be good, but it's not an exciting tool set to work with. And if he wasn't good until this past year (edit: this doesn't appear to be the case), many of the smaller schools already probably got similar recruits.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:47 AM ^
I was just about to write something similar. Having just watched his highights, I think the biggest thing is his slow release. Linebackers and defensive backs are going to jump a lot of his throws because it takes so long to get rid of the ball, and defensive linemen will have a chance to get their hands up and bat down passes. Plus the arm strength doesn't make up for the long release.
That being said, I feel like I've seen worse quarterbacks playing for Eastern Michigan and the like. It does seem that somebody would have taken a shot at him, especially since he does run a fairly complex spread offense that indicates he could transition well into a program like Miami-OH, Rice, etc.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:22 AM ^
Very informative. Shows QB recruiting was a struggle, except for Luck. Most of the QB recruits did not work out. Very different from the narrative.
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January 29th, 2015 at 12:17 PM ^
Thanks!
January 29th, 2015 at 10:50 AM ^
UNM is an option attack under Bob Davie. NMSU brought in like 6 QB's last year. Hence no NM schools looking at him at the D1 level. As for D2 schools here, once again, system fits and previous recruiting classes factor in.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:56 AM ^
And as I said, there are always multiple things to take into account.
I have many examples of kids that were good at one level but didn't have what it takes at the next. The easiest example that anyone understands is that really fast kid that took every sweep for a TD in Junior High and then was a mediocre high school player.
I know my first time really realizing this was when I was in HS, there was a kid at a rival school. He was undersized (5'7"-5'9" probably), not the fastest, but he was already really strong, had great feet, never went down on first contact, and always fell forward. Started as a FR and was a good player every year. I was confused at the time why he wasn't even getting MAC offers (only one was from WMU as a DB). Turned out he was a mediocre DII player (only started his SR year I believe). But that's because he had a lot of skills that allowed him to excel at the HS level, a lot of skills where he was simply better than his peers. But at the college level, all those "plus" skills in HS were average at best even at the DII level. He had nothing that made him stand out, nothing that he could fall back on.
I feel like it may be similar for Bruere, though, as I said, I'm surprised some smaller school didn't offer because he does look like he has a lot of "plus" skills for the HS level, and there is always the chance you can improve those things with technique (whereas with RB, you kind of know what you have in more ways).
January 29th, 2015 at 11:05 AM ^
Texas QB Harbaugh went and watched a couple of weeks ago with no offers, but put up similar numbers of like 50 TD, 5 INT on the year in a pretty decent division in Texas.
January 29th, 2015 at 10:51 AM ^
January 29th, 2015 at 10:57 AM ^
Quote from article:
"The fact that he's been productive helped him avoid the fate of other talented players from New Mexico who weren't as physically gifted."
So wait...it's an article implying that colleges are missing on all these awesome players but then it's implying some of said awesome players aren't so phyically gifted and aren't sp productive?
January 29th, 2015 at 11:02 AM ^
It's Bleacherreport. The fact that this thread hasn't been deleted is because of the story, not the source. The source only detracts from it.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:06 AM ^
When I google about recruiting, I typically include "-bleacherreport"
January 29th, 2015 at 11:07 AM ^
BleacherReport does plenty of real journalism. Go look at their front page right now, they have more real sports news and actual journalism pieces than ESPN does on homepage. This, the article on Life after Kobe, and the piece on Paul George are all good stuff.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:09 AM ^
My distaste for BR was formed before I knew this Board's policy. They have a ton of "click-through" articles and the analysis is often sub-par.
ESPN isn't very good, either.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:20 AM ^
when every article had to be a 'slideshow' to get clicks.
They stopped doing that at least 2 years ago, though. There might still be the rare slide article like that, but they've tried really hard lately to get more serious and have been fine. The 'no bleacher report' policy dates back to when they were more click-baitey and would let anyone write for their sites, but like I said that changed a while ago.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:04 AM ^
January 29th, 2015 at 11:11 AM ^
January 29th, 2015 at 11:13 AM ^
Baseball pitching and football throwing are not really exact parallels. I could throw a football 65 yards when I was in high school and 80 mph was about as fast as I could throw a baseball. I see P5 quarterbacks that may struggle throwing a ball 50 yards. I wonder how far MLB pitchers could throw a football. It's just not a solid correlation.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:18 AM ^
January 29th, 2015 at 11:44 AM ^
I mean... what goes into distance? Velocity, trajectory, and what... drag? So was I only really good at finding a proper trajectory for my throws? My assertion is that throwing distance in football would be much more closely linked with football velocity than would pitch speed. Granted, some people with big arms will not throw on a rope, but that can be taught if the tools are there.
January 29th, 2015 at 11:58 AM ^