I just got back from watching Tate Forcier's high school playoff game against Oceanside High School tonight in California. It was truly one of the strangest football games I have ever seen. The game was delayed for about 1 1/2 hours because the local power grid went down and every light in the stadium went off right before Tate was ready to snap the ball. They only got half of the lights to work (later all of the lights eventually came back on), so they were only using one end of the field (where the lights were on) and both teams kept using the same side of field, swapping after each change of possession. A few observations: - Tate throws a great ball. Unfortunately, his offensive line was horrible and never gave him any time to sit in the pocket and throw a deep ball. It would have been nice to see him attempt some down field stuff, but it was not to be. All of his passes looked sharp and accurate though. He also has a really quick release. - He is a hell of a scrambler, but doesn't seem to have a lot of speed. He is much more nimble than Threet, but doesn't possess another gear to outrun his pursuers. He was able to escape a lot of tackles behind of the line of scrimmage, but he holds onto the ball a lot longer than he should and sometimes gets himself into trouble. I'm sure this will easily be fixed by coaching at the next level. - Tate does not seem to be much of a leader on his team. During the warm-up drills before the game, every single player on his team was participating in the drills besides him. Tate was just off on the sideline by himself screwing around with the managers and cheerleaders. He also didn't appear to be very vocal. I guess I expect the stud of the team, especially the QB, to be the leader of every drill, to be the first one out of the locker room and onto the field after halftime, etc. and Tate just wasn't that guy. He was extremely fired up when he scored (he ran for two touchdowns), but just doesn't seem like a great leader at this point. - His team worked out of a shotgun formation virtually every play. Much like our system, Tate would operate from a no huddle, get his line set, look over to the sidelines to get his play, and then take it from there. His team only scored 14 points, but he was able to move the ball up and down the field against probably the best defensive team in all of San Diego. - Tate was also playing CB, which I hated to see but I understood that his team is trying to win a state title. Forcier was less than good at CB... as a matter of fact, I would say that he was terrible. Thankfully, tonight will be the last night he will ever line up on the defensive side of the ball. - An additional note, his running back is Brennan Clay who is a junior with an offer from us (I think he's a verbal commit). Clay looked pretty good. He doesn't possess breakaway speed, but he's a hard runner with good hands. I definitely don't see him as a slot guy. He looks to be more in the mold of a Minor. He's young though so time will tell. I was impressed by him though. - One final note worth mentioning, Forcier is super thin. Barwis will definitely need to work some magic on him to get him to fill out because the kid looks rail skinny. That's all. I don't have the stats from the game, but Oceanside handled Forcier's team big time in the 2nd half. Although I like the way he throws the ball, I am hoping that Beaver is little more athletic even if he doesn't throw as nice as a ball as Forcier.