Scouting Report: Kendall Fuller
I put up a scouting report on Kendall Fuller this morning. He's a good prospect, but my takeaway is that he seems to be a little overrated on some sites. I don't think he's necessarily a future superstar or a future first round pick, but he should be a good college player if he can keep his head on straight and become a little more physical.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:55 AM ^
I can understand your critique from the pure speed perspective, and in that sense he doesn't seem to be truly elite. But, 6' 185lbs is great size for a HS CB, and he looked like he had good ball skills too. The jogging into the endzone thing doesn't bother me too much because 1) that is an easy fix, and 2) sometimes that isn't necessarily the sign of a kid who is cocky or lazy so much as it is a kid who is just very calm and under control whle playing (ala Trey Burke). The thing that bothered me the most was the number of tackles that he didn't wrap up on.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:27 AM ^
Jogging into the endzone is an easy fix in and of itself. I think the concern is a more wide ranging question of, Is he a high-effort kid or will he do just enough to get by? Those types of kids can be decent players, but they might not necessarily be world beaters.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:29 AM ^
Aside from Fuller, who do you want at CB?
We could use a bigger CB (and there are still other guys, not like it ends with Fuller). Who do you like? Maybe a top 3?
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:49 AM ^
I like Vernon Hargreaves and Devin Butler. I might take Hargreaves ahead of Fuller, but probably not Butler.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:11 AM ^
No Cam Burrows on your list?
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:33 AM ^
Burrows is a Buckeye - he's dead to me.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:07 AM ^
Though he's dead to you, do you think Burrows stays at Corner or moves to safety due to his size and liklihood that he outgrows corner?
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:28 AM ^
I tend to think that most big cornerbacks will end up at safety eventually, whether it's in college or once they get to the NFL. There are always exceptions, but it's way more frequent that those guys don't stick at corner.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:19 AM ^
We can't have him on the team because he'll break down mentally if he sees Jaron Dukes on the field everyday. Six receptions, two touchdowns, 173 yards.
February 23rd, 2012 at 1:31 PM ^
Because if Magnus put him #1 on that list...it must be a pretty weak year for CBs.
February 23rd, 2012 at 4:54 PM ^
Do we have a legitimate shot at Hargreaves or was he just excited to get an offer? I know it is still early and kids haven't got all their offers yet, but has he indicated a desire to visit?
Also, on the jogging into the endzone, is it while he is being chased or when he is already 20 yards passed someone? The latter doesn't seem that bad since two way athletes probably get pretty tired.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:20 PM ^
Hargreaves is expected by most to stay in the state of Florida.
It's half-and-half with Fuller. There were times when the guy was fairly close. I've seen plenty of good two-way athletes, and they don't frequently get too exhausted to score touchdowns the right way.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:19 AM ^
College and High school are two different games my brother. I was really excited about Justin Turner because I thought with his side and speed, he could've been something special, but that didn't turn out as I had hoped.
Don't get me wrong, if they ranked Blake Countess lower than Kendal Fuller, them being from the same schools, I think Kendall Fuller is going to be a BEAST. Or maybe they're ranking him so high because they saw how Blake Countess performed, and they were previously underestimating that school.
With that being said, I think I can speak for everyone in saying Magnus' evaluations are very much appreciated.
Edit: This was supposed to be in reply to the first poster, but I messed up because I'm a noob. And, rivals says he reminds them of Charles Woodson. Blake Countess is from his school as well. I want this guy.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:28 AM ^
If anyone has underrated Good Counsel, DeMatha, Gonzaga or any other DC Catholic League school in football or Basketball...they don't need to rate a prospect ever again.
Some of the best high school sports in the country is in that league.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:18 AM ^
Off topic, but JohnCorbin is your name actually John Corbin? Because mine is.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:02 AM ^
He's come back to warn you that if you don't play guitar at the enchantment under the sea dance, Chuck Berry will never get famous!
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:45 AM ^
Socrates Johnson, is that your real name? Because that's my name.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:48 AM ^
Really? My name is John Corbin. I'm from Iowa, but I went to the University of Michigan, and graduated from the business school last year. Working at AmEx right now. Gotta get back to work before my boss notices! Haha.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:55 AM ^
Get back to work!
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:00 PM ^
For the rest of you guys, this guy is describing my life exactly. He obviously knows me IRL. Who are you? Did you go to bschool with me? Spaeth? Bill?
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:09 AM ^
Hargreaves is excellent, I agree. I just don't think there's much hope of getting him out of Florida (that's me doing my "Captain Obvious" impression).
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:19 AM ^
With Coach Mattison, he could turn into a 1st rounder. Make a Ed Reed out of him.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:26 AM ^
You don't seem very high on some of M's recruits so far. Out of curiousity, how do you come up with your evaluations? I know you coach at the HS level here, but from what I've seen MI HS football is average at best. Do you go to camps, 7 on 7's, or combines? Talk to player's coaches? Watch tape? Talk with the recruits? A combination of all of the above?
I appreciate the time and effort anyone gives to put out evaluations, or report on prospects from a game they went and watched. I'm just curious at what the so-called experts see that you don't see. Or maybe why they see it.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:46 AM ^
Most of my evaluations come from highlight film. Sometimes they come from seeing players in person. I try to only do scouting reports on players that have extensive highlights and/or camp film online. Otherwise, I do have parents and coaches who e-mail me and let me know info about certain players.
I actually try to avoid talking to players myself. TTB Andrew does most of TTB's personal contacts with players. I think it taints my process of remaining objective. I think it would be somewhat difficult to question a player's abilities and then turn around and try to butter him up for an interview, or butter him up for an interview and then turn around and call him slow or bad at football. I think that's one of the problems with the major recruiting sites - they get too close to the recruits/coaches and then can't be 100% honest in their evaluations.
"Hi, this is Joe Schmoe. I work for 247 Sports. I think you really suck at football, so I rated you a 2-star prospect. Would you mind doing me a favor and letting me know every little tidbit about your recruiting process? Who are your favorite schools? Can you give me some inside information on who you'll be choosing at your press conference tomorrow?"
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^
Not that I like sticking up for the scouting sites, but they often separate the people that talk to the players from the people that rank them. TomVH, Sam Webb and others don't do the rankings.
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:27 AM ^
I don't think Sam Webb is involved in the rankings, but Allen Trieu talks to players, and he's involved with the rankings. Josh Helmholdt is the same at Rivals; so is Mike Farrell. Lots of these guys double as evaluators and reporters.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:58 AM ^
I would also point out that, as a coach, I probably have more experience than many of the recruiting "experts" you find at the various sites. The same goes for Steve Sharik, Space Coyote, and the various other coaches who post/have posted on the board. If you look at the bios of some of the national recruiting evaluators and experts, their resumes aren't that impressive. Some of them are simply sports journalists who took a special interest in scouting high schoolers. Some of them played other sports in high school or college - not football - and gravitated toward analyzing football because it's such an awesome sport.
This is not to say that I'm better at it than all/any of them. But I think we should take many analysts' evaluations with a grain of salt, because typically they're not former elite players and coaches. They're just guys who are interested in and willing to do the job. I just try to give honest evaluations from what I see, and if people find them useful, that's great.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:11 AM ^
Which is exactly why I respect you more than all of them. Top-notch information given for free and you answer almost every serious question given.
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:25 AM ^
Thanks!
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:37 AM ^
I was just interested in your process. I've coached, but kept it to the youth level because I love the game and don't have the time to commit to a HS position. I see some of the same things you saw with LTT, but I also see a kid who is working hard to become better. He also seems driven to improve his families way of life. Heart and desire are probably the two hardest things to evaluate when analyzing propects and LTT seems to be a top notch kid in those categories.
The issue with tackling for Fuller seems to be something that has spread throughout football as everyone goes for the "ESPN highlight" kill shot. My personal opinion is Sportscenter is destroying the basic fundamentals of all sports.
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:10 AM ^
Nah, I didn't think you were questioning me. It's a fair question.
I agree that Tuley-Tillman seems to be working hard. Frankly, I just don't think he has the high school coaching and Manual doesn't run the right type of offense to get him prepared for the next level. I stll think highly of his abilities, but he needs a lot of work.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:13 PM ^
It is such an excellent sport, but football and even basketball are the only two sports you could make money on by covering recruiting in high school for college. Soccer: not enough interest and not enough talent. Hockey: lacks the major college factor that football and basketball have and not enough talent (Canada, Europe, and Russia). Baseball: has the interest level the other two lack but probably lacks the talent with the world draw to the MLB and college baseball has to compete with the minors.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:16 AM ^
It seems to me that it's more pointing out the flaws in players' game rather than pointing out their strengths. Every other recruiting site in the nation points out the strengths, so I find it refreshing to see the weaknesses that others don't tell you about. It also helps keep me from getting too high on these players which is good considering that probably only half of them will be productive during their Michigan careers, and a few will be gone from the team in a couple years.
The only downside to Magnus' evaluations is I always feel like the 4 star who OSU got is better than the 4 star Michigan got because I have read some criticism of the Michigan player, and none about the OSU players. Would be interesting to see a break down Magnus style of some of the OSU commits.
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:18 AM ^
My criticisms of OSU players would mostly involve their inability to keep their illegal dealings a secret.
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:57 AM ^
As a Michigan fan, I'd say that's one of the OSU players' strengths.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:28 AM ^
While maybe not great for his scouting, it's pretty funny how he always jogs into the endzone. I've never seen someone do it to that extent every time. Dude just doesn't really give a shit about those last 5 yards.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:34 AM ^
I think he has the potential to be a star. He really jumps on those outside routes and his 4.5 is very legit (always seemed to be the fastest guy on the field). He also seems to have a sturdy build, which you don't often see in a CB. Most of all, the competition that they play is TOP NOTCH, so he is going against several D1 guys and owning them.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:12 AM ^
You definitely have more experience. I used to get paid for covering recruiting in the early 90s when NO ONE was doing it. I got out once I graduated college, but when recruiting exploded, I was agog at the people who were trying to cover it.
I went to a Nike combine a few years ago with a friend who was in the biz. I listened to the fools who were doing the evaluations and I'm not sure they had ever even seen a football before.
Hell, they were struggling just to get people's heights recorded accurately. We were talking to the father of a quarterback prospect and the son walked up to us. He said, "They told me I'm six-feet tall." I'm 6-1 and this kid was about 6-6. His dad said, "Tell them to measure you again." On the second try, they managed to get it right. Another receiver measured in at 6-2. I was standing next to him when they did it and I was easily four inches taller than he was. I'm not even sure they knew what the little numbers they were looking at meant.
It didn't get any better once the seven-on-seven practices began.
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:21 AM ^
Yeah, I've heard this elsewhere, too. That's why I have a hard time trusting some of their evaluations. That's one reason I liked TomVH - he didn't mix his own evaluations with his reporting on recruiting. TomVH, as far as I know, doesn't have a strong football background, so he realizes that scouting isn't really his forte. On the flip side, he's very good at connecting with recruits and he sticks to what he does best.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:20 AM ^
but I'd still take Fuller in a second with an offer list like that. It sounds like he at least has the potential to be a good one. As you imply though, you can almost never call someone a can't-miss prospect because you don't know how they're going to respond to the much higher level of competition when they move up to the college game. There are plenty of 5* and 4* kids who were complete busts in college. Hopefully, Fuller isn't one of them.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:22 AM ^
...I'm no expert, but I agree he needs to learn to wrap up on tackles. Fortunately, if he goes to M, that will be drilled into him. Very fixable. I'm curious why you think he doesn't have speed others think he does? He looks fast on the film. Also, on jogging into the endzone, I see that as a kid acting like he's been there before. The body language didn't suggest lack of determination, to me. Is there something on the film I'm missing that suggests he's lackadaisical?
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:24 AM ^
Barry Sanders acted like he'd been there before. He's sprint into the endzone, hand the ball to the ref, and turn and jog to the sideline. Jogging into the endzone is not the same thing, in my opinion.
Fuller has good speed, but he's not DeSean Jackson or Chris Johnson fast. That's all I'm saying. He'll be fine in college, but he's not a "WOW!" type of athlete.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:28 PM ^
How does Fuller compare to Countess coming out of HS, in your opinion?
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:54 PM ^
Fuller's a little better of an athlete, but I didn't have questions about Countess's attitude and effort.
February 23rd, 2012 at 3:36 PM ^
He is very good there is no doubting that but he doesn't appear to be an elite 5*. When I think of a 5* athlete it is someone with absolute elite speed with no question about it. I do think this kid could be a very very good CB at the next level though.