Question on George Johnson III

Submitted by Ziff72 on

Just watched the tape on GJ III.   HIs quickness and agility is incredible.   Speed looks great.  He's listed at 5'10 180 which is plenty big enough considering his ability.  Not relevant to us but he has a gun for an arm as well.      It sounds like we are getting his commitment tonight over FSU.   What's the word on what's keeping his ranking so low?   Thanks.   

iMBlue2

June 25th, 2018 at 12:59 PM ^

My 2 cents for what it’s worth is position projection.  Could be he was telling teams he wanted to be viewed as a QB.  Current rankings would be him evaluated at that position.  It’s pretty well accepted that Michael Barret for instance would have had a much higher ranking at RB or ATH. Another example would be somone like Tebow who’s last NFL team was a training camp with NE.  Heard had he been open to playing TE or H-back he would have made the team.

Ziff72

June 25th, 2018 at 1:05 PM ^

His moves are 5 star quality.  Would be a great slot.   It's possible he's playing against scrubs but usually Florida has good competition.   I don't get it.  He's ranked around a #1000.    Maybe he doesn't have hands.    He would have to have literally no hands for his #1000 rank to make sense to me. 

SMart WolveFan

June 25th, 2018 at 1:04 PM ^

Probably size in the context of an "ATH", if he were ranked strictly as a slot receiver that rank would probably jump.

He seems to want a shot at QB so he's categorized a little off.

Ziff72

June 25th, 2018 at 1:08 PM ^

I could see that if he wants to be a QB.   He probably shouldn't come here though.   If he wants to be a QB I'm sure there are a ton of mid level programs that would love to have him at QB.   He looks like a Rich Rod guy.     Georgia Tech is probably sick he's not coming.   

VintageBlue

June 25th, 2018 at 1:10 PM ^

His last few recent offers:

  • Florida State
  • Georgia
  • Nebraska
  • Oregon

With big-time programs adding more and more analysts, scouts, and related positions and the recruiting services devouring themselves I think we're reaching a tipping point where schools' collective nets are just wider (and better) than the services.

I mean, Sean McKeon, Kwity Paye, and Josh Uche all say hello!

ak47

June 25th, 2018 at 1:12 PM ^

Probably under scouted. Highlight tapes can be extremely misleading and he might struggle against higher level competition, his hands might not be great. Being a a pure slot wr puts a cap on your ranking like being a 5'8 db does. Recruiting services are just missing on a guy are all possible explanations.

Or it could just be a well put together highlight tape that hides a fair amount of flaws and he isn't as good as it makes him look. Its not like being the 900th best high school football player in the country is a bad thing, that puts him in the top 1 percent of high school seniors so he is going to look good against his competition unless its literally the top teams in the country.

Space Coyote

June 25th, 2018 at 1:31 PM ^

I think you're over-selling a bit his quickness and agility. Both are good, but I don't think they are "incredible". He's shifty, he's not Reggie Bush or Charbonnet for that matter. His speed appears similar, good but not great. He reminds me a bit of a poor man's Braxton Miller. He looks like he isn't afraid of contact and can add some mass to his lower half, he's got pretty solid balance. Not a lot to be shown as far as route running. I don't think he would be a bad pickup by any means, But I also understand why he isn't a 4-star.

If he's the type of guy you're filling out the bottom of your recruiting class though, I think he's a good pickup. Has upside and can fit nicely into a role.

Ziff72

June 25th, 2018 at 2:01 PM ^

His agility seems way better than Zach Charb(he's probably 20-30 lighter so he better be) .  He got out of some tight spots like Houdini.   

The rest of the responses seem to be more in line with the rankings and your opinion so I'll take my maize colored glasses off and rewatch the tape.  

 

Space Coyote

June 25th, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^

An important aspect of agility isn't just ability to move laterally, but get back up to speed immediately after. Charbonnet does that extremely well.

FWIW, I'm very high on Charbonnet's film. He may have my favorite RB film of a UM commit in the last decade (including Isaac). He's got to work on lowering his center of gravity a bit, and I'm a little concerned that guys will be able to get into his legs and chop him down, but his agility and ability to get up to speed on a dime, combined with the fact that he demonstrates he can be a physical runner (plus he has good size) make me very high on him.

AZBlue

June 25th, 2018 at 3:21 PM ^

What is your thought between this young man and the Wandale Robinson(?) kid who was also on campus this weekend?  

I am not sure the staff sees this as an “either-or” choice, but they seem to have similar fits = offensive weapon with a focus on slot - if not similar games.

PS - I saw you trying to be the voice of reason on RCMB re: the QB decommit.  Good Luck with that!  As a M fan, I agree that no matter how good MD is at coaching up “his” guys there is a hard ceiling unless recruiting improves overall.

Space Coyote

June 25th, 2018 at 3:59 PM ^

Haven't posted on RCMB in a while (since before the Nassar thing), so it wasn't me on there talking to them

I prefer Robinson. I think he has a little better start/stop/start to him. Very low center of gravity, maybe a little more limited as a true receiving option because of his lack of height. 

AZBlue

June 25th, 2018 at 4:51 PM ^

thanks for the info.  Rankings (and Bluey..because "rankings") would agree with that assessment, but sometimes they aren't accurate when these kids are late bloomers or avoid camps. 

Sorry about the RCMB "slur" by association.  For some reason I thought you were "Rocky" on the other board - another person who seems to be a Football guy above all else (though he is definitely a Spartan first).

bronxblue

June 25th, 2018 at 3:07 PM ^

I don't know for sure, but I think for a lot of guys who won't play the position in college they primarily play in HS, you can only evaluate so much based on the information at hand.  He's not a huge guy, he has a good arm but it doesn't look incredibly accurate (though with HS QBs, I always wonder how much accuracy is on the QB and how much is the whole offense), and isn't an otherwordly athlete.  And as we've seen recently, a lot of these evaluations come from one camp or watching a couple minutes of tape at best, so you get the ESPN special "3* fire-and-forget-it" scores.

The coaches liked him, he's been getting offers places he visits, and at maybe it's because I've started to look at recruiting sites a bit more deeply, but there is a lot of follow-the-leader on guys outside of the top 250-300.  Basically, if some places says "meh", regardless of what that's based on, every other place sort of follows lock-step.  Which is fine, you can't realistically study tape on every guy in the country.  But it leads to some guys being overlooked.  He's probably a depth guy at Michigan, but that's okay.  Those guys can 100% contribute as upperclassmen. 

Mr Miggle

June 25th, 2018 at 6:08 PM ^

Playing a different position in HS may be a factor, but I think a bigger one is the uncertainty about where he wants to play in college. Steve Breaston and Jeremy Gallon were HS QBs too. But they were never going to play QB in college, were recruited as WRs and got evaluated properly. Barrett was being recruited as a QB by GT and maybe a QB by Nebraska. As a RB by others. So how do recruiting services evaluate him? Sounds like Johnson is also interested in playing QB, so that factors into his evaluation somehow.