Predict Your Breakout Player for the 2019 Season

[The Rock]

Offense: Peeples
Defense: Fehr
ST: Reid Harper LS.

Was Fehr not a breakout guy last season? You saw what happened against Southern once he left the game, right?

I was thinking the same. Fehr had his breakout last year. I also don't think we can list Akeem Davis-Gaither as a breakout this year because he did so in 2018 as well.

I saw Fehr, last season, having "moments". This year those moments need to become consistent. I think they will.

I feel like Fehr was really consistent last year and the best LB we had. I would classify them as more than flashes

[appstate77]

Offense: Peeples
Defense: Fehr
ST: Reid Harper LS.

Was Fehr not a breakout guy last season? You saw what happened against Southern once he left the game, right?

I was thinking the same. Fehr had his breakout last year. I also don't think we can list Akeem Davis-Gaither as a breakout this year because he did so in 2018 as well.

I saw Fehr, last season, having "moments". This year those moments need to become consistent. I think they will.

I feel like Fehr was really consistent last year and the best LB we had. I would classify them as more than flashes

I saw Davis-Gaither as the breakout LB last season with Fehr "in waiting". To each his own I guess.

[ericsaid]

DGB will not see meaningful snaps this year. Drink has said he is red shirting this year. If Zac goes down for any amount of time, we have two serviceable backups that can get the job done.

I am not bashing DGB, but Brown was more ready to start day one than DGB is. Too bad his head got in the way. I don’t understand how you can glow about his tape and claim that it is the best that you have ever seen for an App, but you can’t seem to reconcile yourself to ask the questions that are in front of you. He was an ESPN 100 as a Sophomore and not even in then 300 as a Senior. He wasn’t even the starter on his team as a Senior and it isn’t like he sat behind Tua. The starter is at UAB.

If he plays more than 4 games, we are effed.

Please explain to me how Brown was more ready to start than DBG is going to be? IMG played 8 games. Bryson Lucero who went to UAB had been at IMG for at least two years that I could find. DGB came in and beat him out for the most part. All of their games except for one was a blowout with the average score being 41.6 to 7.8. Their only loss was to the Number One school in the Country by a score of 28-24. Clearly, being in his first year at a Prep Academy, similar to Oak Hill for basketball, he would have been behind the 8 Ball in getting the jump over another guy who was obviously not as talented.

You are reading into the rankings of ESPN and suggesting that starting at a Prep Academy with two seniors is an indication of anything. You're reading into his stats from IMG while completely discounting the play in 3-years in Los Angeles. Below you will find a link to his highlights from his Junior year at Upton. In this film you will very clearly see the difference between the type of athlete faced by Brown and DGB, the maturity as a QB that Baldwin has to display, and the type of athleticism/arm and escapability combo we haven't seen since Armanti. The guys you see him playing against are similar in size and speed while his offensive line appears to get beat up almost every play shown.

" I don’t understand how you can glow about his tape and claim that it is the best that you have ever seen for an App, but you can’t seem to reconcile yourself to ask the questions that are in front of you."

I'm not entirely sure what his rankings have to do with anything? I thought you based your opinions of players based on what your eyes and experience tells you, not what ESPN rankings system does? App fans have been saying to ignore rankings since the beginning of recruiting ranking services yet we are supposed to pay attention to them here? I don't know how YOU can't seem to reconsile what you see on tape with what his rankings showed. His ranking dipped because he never committed to the schools he was receiving offers from. His tape shows a developmental guy at the P5 level and a probable starter at the G5 level. Watch the link below and tell me exactly what you see.

At 1:20 in this video you will see a guy rolling out to his left and off of his backfoot throw the ball 50 yards through the air, right over the shoulder of the receiver. You see great touch on fades, escapability from the pocket, lack of top end speed but adequate quickness in the pocket, the ability to continue looking downfield, a bit of a longer throwing motion but the ball carries nicely, good spin rate, catchable ball, back shoulder fade routes, full field read at 1:43 in the video (checks at least 3 receivers that I can see and comes off his primary guy to make around a 45 yard throw from the middle of the field to the sideline (27 yard line, middle field, to 48 yard sideline).

What is there not to like about that? Critique away while putting your obvious concern over what happened with Brown to the side.



Junior Highlights

Arm Strength

[ericsaid]

Offense: Peeples
Defense: Fehr
ST: Reid Harper LS.

Was Fehr not a breakout guy last season? You saw what happened against Southern once he left the game, right?

I was thinking the same. Fehr had his breakout last year. I also don't think we can list Akeem Davis-Gaither as a breakout this year because he did so in 2018 as well.

I saw Fehr, last season, having "moments". This year those moments need to become consistent. I think they will.

I feel like Fehr was really consistent last year and the best LB we had. I would classify them as more than flashes

Fehr was a great addition to the second-level. It may be his body shape but he reminds me of a G5 version of Luke Kuechly. Great speed and instincts.

I honestly feel that the only reason, and something most people don't want to talk about (moral victories), that App lost to Georgia Southern is because Fehr in addition to Thomas went down. Reduced practice time makes it incredibly difficult to have a green back-up QB come in and perform well which obviously played a role but the defense just crumbled (relative to what we've come to expect) when Fehr was ejected.

My comment of him being a breakout player is more related to his notoriety rather than his actual play. Didn't get much coverage last season from what I saw and hasn't this offseason but he is a top ILB in the Sun Belt.

[ericsaid]

Was Fehr not a breakout guy last season? You saw what happened against Southern once he left the game, right?

I was thinking the same. Fehr had his breakout last year. I also don't think we can list Akeem Davis-Gaither as a breakout this year because he did so in 2018 as well.

I saw Fehr, last season, having "moments". This year those moments need to become consistent. I think they will.

I feel like Fehr was really consistent last year and the best LB we had. I would classify them as more than flashes

I saw Davis-Gaither as the breakout LB last season with Fehr "in waiting". To each his own I guess.

Fehr Statline: 86 Total Tackles (36 Solo, 39 Assisted), 7.5 TFL for 43 yards, 5.5 Sacks for 41 yards, 2 PBU, 2 QBH, 1 FR

Davis-Gaither: 105 Total Tackles (48 solo, 57 assisted), 10 TFL for 22 yards, 1.5 sacks for 6 yards, 7 PBU, 3 QBH, 2 FF

Without understanding the defensive assignments of either player it's hard to tell why there is a discrepancy in sacks but it would appear to me that they sent Fehr to blitz while Davis-Gaither dropped into coverage. Two quality guys, neither of whom can be described as "in waiting" considering they were two of the top three tacklers on the team.

Fehr actually was the sack leader.

[AppSt94]

Please explain to me how Brown was more ready to start than DBG is going to be? IMG played 8 games. Bryson Lucero who went to UAB had been at IMG for at least two years that I could find. DGB came in and beat him out for the most part. All of their games except for one was a blowout with the average score being 41.6 to 7.8. Their only loss was to the Number One school in the Country by a score of 28-24. Clearly, being in his first year at a Prep Academy, similar to Oak Hill for basketball, he would have been behind the 8 Ball in getting the jump over another guy who was obviously not as talented.

You are reading into the rankings of ESPN and suggesting that starting at a Prep Academy with two seniors is an indication of anything. You're reading into his stats from IMG while completely discounting the play in 3-years in Los Angeles. Below you will find a link to his highlights from his Junior year at Upton. In this film you will very clearly see the difference between the type of athlete faced by Brown and DGB, the maturity as a QB that Baldwin has to display, and the type of athleticism/arm and escapability combo we haven't seen since Armanti. The guys you see him playing against are similar in size and speed while his offensive line appears to get beat up almost every play shown.

" I don’t understand how you can glow about his tape and claim that it is the best that you have ever seen for an App, but you can’t seem to reconcile yourself to ask the questions that are in front of you."

I'm not entirely sure what his rankings have to do with anything? I thought you based your opinions of players based on what your eyes and experience tells you, not what ESPN rankings system does? App fans have been saying to ignore rankings since the beginning of recruiting ranking services yet we are supposed to pay attention to them here? I don't know how YOU can't seem to reconsile what you see on tape with what his rankings showed. His ranking dipped because he never committed to the schools he was receiving offers from. His tape shows a developmental guy at the P5 level and a probable starter at the G5 level. Watch the link below and tell me exactly what you see.

At 1:20 in this video you will see a guy rolling out to his left and off of his backfoot throw the ball 50 yards through the air, right over the shoulder of the receiver. You see great touch on fades, escapability from the pocket, lack of top end speed but adequate quickness in the pocket, the ability to continue looking downfield, a bit of a longer throwing motion but the ball carries nicely, good spin rate, catchable ball, back shoulder fade routes, full field read at 1:43 in the video (checks at least 3 receivers that I can see and comes off his primary guy to make around a 45 yard throw from the middle of the field to the sideline (27 yard line, middle field, to 48 yard sideline).

What is there not to like about that? Critique away while putting your obvious concern over what happened with Brown to the side.



Junior Highlights

Arm Strength
[/quote]

Bryson Lucero was at IMG for four years. He was the first player to spend all four years at IMG. Even though he was at IMG for four years, he never played a snap with the Blue Team. (They have two teams- a national team with the 5 star kids and a local team that completes as an independent in Florida) Granted it is hard to see playing time when you are stuck behind the likes of Shea Patterson, Kellen Mond and Deondre Francois. But to say that DGB beat him out is not accurate. They split time and both had pedestrian passing statistics and IMG runs the ball most of the game.

I don't look at stats and I don't look at ratings to tell me if a kid is going to be good or not because you just can't predict the mental attributes of an 18 year old kid. I also don't look at the competition that the kid is playing against because the average high school game only has one player that is going to go to a D1 school. I am more interested in their mechanics than their stats. For instance, I can't dispute any of the attributes in your assessment. He does all of those things very well. However, he has some mechanical flaws in his game that you can mask at the high school level. And especially given the receivers that he played with at IMG. Can these flaws be corrected? Of course. Will he, we will see. The concerning part is that these flaws were present in his junior year film. One would think that they would have been corrected his senior year, given the elite coaching that he received. Also, you have to be aware of the fact that you are looking at a highlight reel. Meaning that you aren't going to see the bad stuff so you can't gauge how bad it really is.

The reason that Brown was more ready from a football standpoint was evident on the tape. When I watch DGB, it is easy to pick out where he can improve his mechanics. His footwork is all wrong, his throws are all arm. He lacks zip on his intermediate throws because he doesn't step into them. All of this is correctable or else Eli would not have taken him. When you watch Brown's tape, dude's mechanics were on point. He had great touch and the throws were lively and he possessed the same good attributes as DGB only he was more polished. When I watched the tape, and I don't watch a lot of tape, the first thing I did was email Moose and ask why this kid didn't have more offers. Brown didn't work out and I hope that he can get his life back on track but he was more ready as a high school senior.

As I stated above, I don't look at ratings and rankings, but when someone free falls as he did, you have to wonder why. When you see a guy that is rated so highly with offers from some pretty nice schools, 5 SEC schools and a few others, and none of them materialize and he drops so far down the ratings, and you don't ask why, then you are asking for trouble. Did teams see him as a raw talent as a Sophomore that they thought that he would get better and didn't? Was there an issue off the field that materialized? Were his Sophomore stats blown out of proportion by the competition that he was playing against and he struggled against better competition? I don't know and I don't care. We will see if he pans out for Eli and App. I hope that he does because he can be a beast if he gets it all worked out.

And full disclosure. I am not reading into stats. I live 10 miles from IMG and I have seen him play in person. We can continue to agree to disagree on this but we will see if Drink can fix what needs fixing and here's to three years of success as the starter after ZT graduates.

[MountaineerMafia]

Noel Cook for defense.

Cam Peoples for offense.

[AppStFan1]

Offense: Peeples
Defense: Fehr
ST: Reid Harper LS.

Was Fehr not a breakout guy last season? You saw what happened against Southern once he left the game, right?

I was thinking the same. Fehr had his breakout last year. I also don't think we can list Akeem Davis-Gaither as a breakout this year because he did so in 2018 as well.

I saw Fehr, last season, having "moments". This year those moments need to become consistent. I think they will.

Yeah but I figured having a 1st or 2nd team All-SBC season is kind of your breakout. If you are thinking he could go from All-SBC to an All-America type then yes I could see him as a national breakout player possibly. He does need to cleanup a few things. I expect him and ADG to be the best LB duo in the SBC by far.

[NoLongerLurking]

Tight ends. All of them that play.

[The Rock]

Raykwon Anderson . Cracks the field as a PR/KR in the absence of Duck, gets in rotation at slot.**

**due to stacked roster depth, he may redshirt. In that event keep these comments for next year’s predictions

[Gonzo]

Tight ends. All of them that play.

This was a thought provoking prediction for me. We have some studs, especially Reed. TEs were a fantastic red zone asset last year and years past.

But NCSU’s offense only scored one TD via tight end in 2018. Only two of their TEs tallied a modest nine cumulative receptions for the entire season.

Could be a personnel issue of course, but the TE virtually wasn’t in Drink’s playbook last year.

[Appstate88]

At 1/3 of the way through the season, I think #70 Cooper Hodges is our breakout player of 2019. What do you say?

[JMappfan5]

Malik Williams or Cooper!!!