TomVH: Joe Kerridge Update
Joe Kerridge is a 6-foot-1, 230-pound fullback (also plays linebacker) from Traverse City. He was at Michigan's junior day this weekend. He doesn't have an offer yet, but Fred Jackson hadn't been able to look at his film today.
Coach Jackson said he is going to get back to him this week about an offer, and his recruitment. I know there has been some comparison to Owen Schmitt, but take a look for yourself.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:51 PM ^
Surprisingly fast for a big guy.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:53 PM ^
but as always, thanks for the info Tom.
EDIT: Holy crap that kid can move!
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:55 PM ^
He goes to the same school (TC St. Francis) Max Bullough attended. Will that have an impact on him if MSU pushes to get him?
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:23 PM ^
They gave a scholarship to Niko Palazeti for the 2010 class. I doubt they would offer FB's in consecutive years.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:33 PM ^
That's what I get for not looking at MSU's recruiting class.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:01 PM ^
Haha, well Niko was about to be part of our recruiting class before MSU offered him.
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:14 AM ^
as both of last year's FBs were 5th year seniors.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:55 PM ^
Impressive stats.
Never really known TC to be a hotbed for competition when you line up Detroit and the rest of the country. I know it's been stated, but Tom, any guess on the number of Schollies for next season? I know it flucuates, I'd just like to have an idea with all these months left.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:55 PM ^
Perhaps the fastest man he's seen since he saw Usain Bolt in an Olympic trial. Sorta reminds of him of Mike Alstott, except bigger, faster, and generally a fuckton better. He's coached some great fullbacks like BJ Askew, but he believes Kerridge has the potential to shit all over Askew and certainly defecate bloody diarrhea all over All-Pro's like Larry Centers and Lorenzo Neal. But he just needs some time to develop. He's still just a junior and he can't wait to coach him up. His upside is Jim Brown.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:57 PM ^
had to bump you a point just for making me laugh.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:36 PM ^
funniest thing i've read in a while
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:29 PM ^
Wow. The best part of that was defecating bloody diarrhea.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:59 PM ^
That line alone is generally a fuckton better than anything I read today.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:01 PM ^
-1 for not mentioning Kevin Dudley.
+1 for not shitting the bed over a possible offer to a fullback.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:03 PM ^
I was waiting for someone to make a Kevin Dudley comment......
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:56 PM ^
Dudes that are his size, but still nimble, amaze me.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:57 PM ^
... how many stars does Rivals give him?
/sarcasm
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:59 PM ^
The pancake at 1.08 is defiantly a 'sit down and shut up' block
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:01 PM ^
I say offer him. This offense needs a fullback, and the kid looks agile enough where he can be a great blocker once he becomes leaner and stronger. It sucks that there are limited scholarships for 2011, but after missing out on the walk-on from DCC this year, we must find a quality player for the position.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:07 PM ^
He looks like he would help on 1st and goal from the 1... ya know... if that were to ever happen... sigh.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:07 PM ^
I'm sure they would love to have him as a preferred, but that's probably unlikely since he'll certainly have (at least) MAC-level offers. A good FB is a need for M, but it's easier to fill than almost every other position. I'm not sold he's a high major talent. It'll be interesting to see what the coaches think.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 PM ^
Remember that we did get one walk-on this year (Sayed) who had MAC offers. Plus, since fullback is not a position where we take more than the occasional player, the coaches could reasonably suggest that he'd find himself on the depth chart as a walk-on. Rodriguez loves him some walk-ons etc etc
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:11 PM ^
I read it as 6 foot 1,230-pounds. I thought maybe we were recruiting a grizzly bear. "Sign him up!" I thought.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:14 PM ^
Posbanged you, I did.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:33 PM ^
+1
My first thought was JUGGERNAUGHT!
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:15 PM ^
This kid is a beast, check on 1.01, he absolutely dominates the defender. He might play in a weaker division but he is the best there by far!
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:18 PM ^
I just noticed that he is playing in the Superior Dome in some highlights. Turns out his team beat Ishpeming. It's weird seeing a somewhat local team (everything is kind of local in the U.P.) on a highlight video.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:22 PM ^
Yeah, I thought that was interesting too. Ishpeming's traditionally good at football though, aren't they? Typically they out-do Gwinn/Marquette/Westwood as far as area teams go, and it seems like they're always in the playoffs.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 PM ^
They are, but Iron Mountain (where I'm from) traditionally wins the Mid-Pen Conference and Ishpeming is stuck playing second fiddle. However, I would like to point out that Ishpeming was the only team to give Traverse City St. Francis a decent game last season. Holy Crap TCSF was pretty good apparently. Here are their results (all wins):
55-7
64-0
28-0
56-0
71-7
59-6
50-7
54-0
54-8
28-20 (Ishpeming game)
34-7
42-8
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:19 PM ^
That field at 2:00 is probably one of the worst fields I've ever seen. He looks great, though. TC usually puts out a Big Ten level player every few years, I can't remember who we took from there a few years ago...
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:29 PM ^
That's what you get when you have three varsity teams (TC West, TC Central, and SF) all play their home games on one field. Then you add on the occasional JV game, freshman game, and pop warner game and by late October, you play in mud in Traverse.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:40 PM ^
That's the way football is supposed to be played. I hate artificial turf wherever it is, including the Big House.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:42 PM ^
on a surface that's not conducive to maximing any players full athletic ability, and instead turns the game into a slipping match? To each his own, I guess. Ban that gotdamn forward pass its horse shit!
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:20 AM ^
Thirlby Field is a terrific yard and has seen some great football programs. It holds about 10,000 and gets filled from time to time. Jim Ooley ran a dynasty at TC Central and regularly filled Thirlby before the schools were divided. Waldo Keating had a great ride at St. Francis, and now St. Francis is getting a lot of the families who formerly played for Central. Some terrific kids played there -- Dave Whiteford was a defensive back for Michigan back in the early 70s from TC Central, Mark Brammer was an All-America tight end at Michigan State and came from TC Central, Rick Waters played at Central Michigan as a DB after a great career at running back at TC Central, Mark Burkholder played tight end at Michigan and came out of TC Central, and this doesn't include some great players from Muskegon, Muskegon Catholic Central, Alpena and some of the other schools that came into Thirlby to play. A lot of slow, undersized TC teams have won a lot of football games in Thirlby Field. Coach Ooley used to say, "We may be small and slow, but we're dumb. We're too dumb to know we can't win."
Any Friday night in the fall for any of the TC football teams is a great time.
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:47 AM ^
Have you ever played @ Sault Ste. Marie late season? Talk about awful, they redid their field but it's right next to a swamp and it's just terrible. You were literally into your ankles in mud and it basically made a vacuum in my shoe so it took forever to get them off haha
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:35 PM ^
Rocko Khoury is from Traverse City.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:21 PM ^
If the MGoCreeper van makes a trip to check him out in HD, he is likely to plow right thru that bitch.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:57 PM ^
Impressive. He can rumble for a big man.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:27 PM ^
I graduated from SF 3 years ago and never got to play with Joe but I have seen him play a few times. The kid plays like a bowling ball. He is pretty quick for his size but it is VERY difficult to tell how good kids out of SF really are with the poor competition we always play. That is one reason that I am not too high on Bullough right now. He could turn out to be a great LB but it is just way too early to tell. Another example was Patrick Rigan. He came out of SF a year before I did and was a 4 star DE/TE. The kid just dominated the competition because he was twice as big as everyone else but he was a bust at state (injuries had a lot to do with it too)
Another bonus with Kerridge is that the kid is one hell of a punter. I know that we really don't need one, but the kid has some kind of foot on him. If he ends up at a MAC school, he will be their number 1 punter no doubt about it. I'll be pulling for the kid no matter where he ends up.
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:54 PM ^
I can already imagine RR letting him onto the field to punt like Owen Schmidt got to at WVU, and coming off the field smashing his forehead with his helmet just like Owen.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:31 PM ^
And he plays defense too... Next Charles Woodson!?
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:35 PM ^
Looking at his abilities I think he'd make a great asset RB in the spread. Good combination of speed and strength. Imagine if we spread the other team out and some poor coverage LB or safety type gets tasked to drag this guy down. He'll just lower his shoulder and plow them over.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:37 PM ^
I like his skills.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:38 PM ^
how good he is, but I like how he's able to maintain his balance after being knocked off-stride. Ran through a bunch of arm tackles, and gave a couple of nice stiff-arms.
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:07 PM ^
He plays in a lower division and at 6-1 230 he is probably one of the biggest kids on the field. So he's not really playing against top talent.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:40 PM ^
he's a great blocker with some good speed for his size and added agility. great attributes for a fullback. get this kid to UM somehow
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:44 PM ^
I would be thoroughly surprised if this kid gets an offer, unless the class balloons from about 13/14 to 22. He is S-L-O-W and Rodriguez doesn't offer many fullbacks.
Maybe (and that's a big "maybe") as a linebacker, but not as a fullback.
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:08 PM ^
1) You don't need to be F-A-S-T to gain 2 yards on 3rd and 1
2) Dude's not slow, he's not fast, but he ain't slow
3) His highlight reel bears a striking resemblence to Toby Gerhart's out of high school. I'm not saying this guy is Toby G., but they have a similar running "Rage" style...Toby's 3 star status and slooowness probably would have pissed a few people off on this board if he'd gone Blue...
I wouldn't be mad if they threw him an offer and he accepted. Hopkins may be the answer, but knowing you have a bull to bash up the china shop is invaluable in the Big Ten...
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:47 PM ^
1) Just because Toby Gerhart had a good season doesn't mean every white, slow, Joe Schmoe of an oversized running back can be successful.
2) Dude is slow. He's getting caught from behind - quickly, I should add - by high school players in a sparsely talented league.
3) Just for you, I went back and watched some Toby Gerhart films from high school. Gerhart looks shifty and lightning fast when compared to Kerridge.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:03 PM ^
1) Really? Thanks coach.
2) Dude is not slow in my opinion. Dude got caught a couple of times from behind, dude outran the field a couple of times. Dude runs around a 4.6 in my opinion. While I respect your opinion on most things to do with football as being superior to mine, your ability to judge speed and shiftiness is not any better than the average human's ability to judge speed and shiftiness.
3) I too watched Gerhat's films from High School. He doesn't look any faster to me in the majority of them except for one on Rivals where everyone in the film appears to be going 1.5x real time speed. I'm guessing the film was sped up. Technology and what not, blows the mind. Word.
Not trying to argue you here Magnus, just respectfully disagreeing with your assessment. I'm guessing he gets a couple of legit offers before it's all said and done, even if one of those isn't from Michigan. I'd still be happy to have him. I understand that you wouldn't feel the same way. Good times all around.