My favorite thing about the combine is getting concrete, carefully measured numbers for players that we’ve watched for years but only had BS numbers on from what their colleges measured and reported or numbers from SPARQ tests when they were juniors in high school.
I wish we could get numbers on more players, but the combine didn’t invite many Big 12 players this year. Many people took that as a big knock on the Big 12, I think it was more just a knock on that particular class of Big 12 players. A lot of the best players in the league are coming back next year and I can think of a few guys that will have major NFL attention that weren’t up for notice yet such as OL Orlando Brown and Connor Williams. I’m also a bit surprised that Denzel Johnson didn’t get an invite.
If you head to SB Nation you can see full results but here’s just a few that stood out to me.
Rasul Douglas, WVU
Douglas was my DPOY last year in the B12, which was personally disappointing since I had Malik Jefferson there on my preseason ballot and he wasn’t even close. Jordan Willis had a strong case but we’ll get to him in a moment.
Douglas measured in at 6-2, 209 and ran a 4.6 40. West Virginia used him some in zone and some in press-man and he was pretty dang effective at both. Sadly we don’t have a shuttle time for him or a vertical but this gives you a sense of the kind of size and athleticism that can make for a top corner in the Big 12. Douglas was a four-star out of his JUCO program but I don’t know if he was even ranked out of high school.
Jordan Willis, KSU
It seems like every year there’s some dude out of K-State that’s an overlooked freak athlete. The perception of the program is generally that they are all maxed out, hard-working kids or troubled JUCOs that found a home but that’s not really accurate. As I’ve noted in my class breakdowns of the Wildcats over the years, they often get their share of great athletes as well and Willis is just the most recent example.
He measured in at 6-4, 255, ran a 4.53 40, posted a 39″ vertical, and ran a 4.08 shuttle. If a dude did that at a Nike event with SPARQ testing he’d get offers from every major program in the nation the next day.
As it happens, Willis was also dominant on the field at K-State with 11.5 sacks this season and 8.5 the year before. The Wildcats got him as a 3-star out of Missouri back in the day and he played sparingly as a freshman, more as a soph, and then dominated in his last two seasons.
Patrick Mahomes, Tech
Mahomes did pretty much exactly what I thought in the measurements. He came in at 6-2, 225, ran a 4.8 40 but lept 30″ in the vertical and ran a 4.08 shuttle. You’ll never catch Mahomes if he has horizontal space to work in but he won’t kill you running through a vertical seam.
In the NFL the latter point won’t matter since it’ll be his ability to hit passing windows down the field after buying time with lateral cuts that will be featured, much as it was at Tech. I’ve heard a lot of talk about how much of an adjustment he’ll be facing in the NFL but I don’t exactly see what people are talking about.
To me the best signs of a QB succeeding in the NFL are his ability to master his college system and wield it on the field and his accuracy. The NFL is a different animal than the college game and demonstrating the ability to understand the complexities of NFL schemes by being entrusted with a lot in your college offense is probably a better sign than showing rote memorization of something simple. Accuracy is an obvious issue, you have to beat a lot of man coverage in the NFL. I think Mahomes brings accuracy and off-schedule playmaking to the NFL, mastery of a system is something we’ll have to wait and see on but he seemed to have a lot on his plate at Tech.
Samaje Perine, OU
Perine’s numbers simply weren’t that amazing for a dude that is the record holder for rushing yardage at a place like Oklahoma. He came in at 5-11, 233 and ran a 4.65 with a 33″ vertical and a 4.37 shuttle. His speed score, a useful Football Outsiders metric which combines weight and speed to determine how much force a player is bringing to the line of scrimmage, was 99.7 which makes him about average for an NFL back.
Obviously with those numbers he’s a very good athlete with a solid amount of explosiveness in a wide and compact frame, but perhaps those things were magnified by two factors in the Big 12. First, the fact that he was often running on smaller defenders and second, the quality of his own OL.
In 2014 when he was a freshman Perine was playing with FB Aaron Ripkowski (in the NFL) and TE/H-back Blake Bell (in the NFL) as well as an OL that went from left to right:
Tyrus Thompson: 6-5, 331. Senior. 6th round pick currently in the NFL.
Adam Shead: 6-4, 315. Redshirt senior. Didn’t make it in NFL.
Ty Darlington: 6-3, 286. Junior. Didn’t make it in NFL.
Nila Kasitati: 6-4, 313. Redshirt junior. Currently in the NFL.
Daryl Williams: 6-5, 327. Senior. 4th round pick currently in the NFL.
That was a massive and highly experienced unit that the Sooners put on the field complete with Bell and Ripkowski helping to plow the road in conjunction with these monsters. Perine was good but a lot of backs would have killed in that setting.
The 2015 OL wasn’t as good, not shocking since they had to replace all of these guys except Kasitati and Darlington, both of whom I believed were injured some that year. In 2016 the Sooners had a pretty good OL again with monsters like Orlando Brown, Dru Samia, and Ben Powers mashing people up front.
The point is, if you put an average NFL back with Perine’s size working behind NFL-caliber blockers in the Big 12 you’re going to see results. I think we might find something similar with D’Onta Foreman who often looked like a heroic beast in Big 12 play but is probably fairly comparable to Perine in actual skill and athleticism.
Next year the Sooners return their TE/FB combo again with Dmitri Flowers and Mark Andrews, they bring back the entire starting OL, and they return QB Baker Mayfield. I’ll bet you that whoever wins the starting RB job for Oklahoma is going to be made to look very good again whether he’s truly elite or not.
No comment on Aviante’ Collins who measured at 6′ 4″ and 295, did 34 reps, and ran 4.81?
Guy is exceptionally raw as he has basically never been coached properly in the offensive line.
Watched him play a couple of times in high school on what was one of the worst coached high school teams I have ever seen at Willowridge and he basically just stood around and pushed the guy in front of him.
His two best years at TCU were while he played for Eddie Williamson. When Williamson retired that was the end of any coaching in the offensive line for TCU which could be seen in the way certain players have regressed.
I don’t know whether Collins loves the game enough to put the work in to become a good pro, but if he lands with a good offensive line coach he might be a big surprise.
No, didn’t even see that.
The OL problems in Fort Worth are likely one reason Kansas has a new OC.
In my mind, the single most important thing that needs changing is the goal line/short yardage package. Too many sideways plays and too many fade throws to midgets.
My kingdom for a power dive play!
A friend who is an alum for another B12 school wanted to rain a bit on my parade by pronouncing one night over beers that Chris Thomsen is an average at best o-line coach.
I simply said average would be a huge step-up from the dog crap we have seen the past few years. Noteboom and Collins played the last half of the season as if they were on skates and that is a byproduct of terrible technique. Not something you should see from a 5-year senior and 4-year junior.
Word is that change in the o-line is quite noticeable already and I would imagine we will actually see an offensive scheme under Cumbie instead of random plays.
Look for a few more power sets and run to set the pass.
“Look for a few more power sets and run to set the pass.”
And because the starting QB will likely be someone that is an effective runner. With either Hill or Robinson at the helm it makes sense to emphasize the run game more.
I agree and I think it will be a good way to utilize some of the offensive pieces they have that can fit into multiple formations.
Shaun Nixon proved two years ago he can be effective as a running back or in the slot. Christian Williams was lined up in the backfield and in the traditional tight end alignment. Put both of them on the field with either quarterback and the Frogs can either go two backs in a power set or five-wides.
Oh yeah, Nixon’s skill set and the Hill or Robinson pair is a good combo. TCU could look like they did back in the Andy Dalton era once more. The problem after Fuente left wasn’t the scheme but the teaching, practice, and perhaps the culture. I think the big fix that Cumbie and Meacham brought was the Air Raid install plan and Cumbie’s effectiveness reaching Boykin.
Davey:
It’s early, but I’ve been impressed with Thomsen’s recruiting chops. We desperately need a good OL tranche next February.
Philly,
I am very interested in watching to see if Thomsen can develop the group of 10 young offensive linemen the Frogs will have on campus for next season. Can’t think of the last time they had this much young talent in the offensive line at one time.
Two overlooked prospects in White and McMillon White is raw and physical from a part of the country that doesn’t provide the resources for its high school programs as if White had gone to school in the Metroplex. Interesting to see how he progresses.
Really like McMillon’s footage as Abilene often lined him up in the backfield and led with him. Not often do you see a tackle prospect lining up four-yards deep, pulling, and then effectively leading a back upfield. Have to like the feet and mobility. Question know is can he gain the weight and strength.
Both guard commits are physical players who indicate to me a different type of running game than we have recently seen at TCU.
McMillon’s older brother Jake is probably the 2nd best OL on Texas’ roster right now and no. 1 is a plausible top 10 draft pick. Jake came to Austin at 6-3, 240 and I wasn’t sure if he could add the weight or not. It proved pretty simple and now he’s an absolute mauler.
Letting Coy go to TCU is one of my few frustrations with Herman and his staff so far.
Ian I agree the teaching fell off after Fuente, but I also believe we also saw TCU fall away from offense being executed in some sort of connected way.
Fuente’ didn’t just call a series of plays out of formations, but you saw things build on things the Frogs were having success and attack from there as the defense tried to adjust or we saw cases of where the Frogs attacked a defense’s weaknesses. Perfect example was how TCU attacked Utah with the deep ball as well as Boise at Boise.
Under Meachum we saw random formations and what seemed to be random play calls except in an attempt to have no pattern the offense fell into a pattern. A reverse at the goal line only fools teams so many times to not be expected.
It should probably be mentioned that the 2016 problems at QB and WR made the OL production look worse than it really was.
The offense will be fairly heavy in upperclassmen across the board in 2017. Those kids and Cumbie probably feel like they have a lot to prove.
In some ways, this off-season feels an awful lot like the one after 2013’s four-and-eight nightmare.
We have to win in Norman and Stillwater sometime, right?
Quarterback and receiver play did not help, but in the games against three of the better defensive fronts the Frogs faced in the Big 12 they got whipped against WVU, OSU, and KState.
Those last two at home were nothing short of brutal and the o-line in 2016 was not inexperienced. Collins was a fifth year senior who had started multiple games over four years, Noteboom was a fourth year junior who was a multi-game starter, Pryor and Morris were fourth year juniors, and Schlottman was the youngster of the group as a true junior.
Twenty combined years in the program and twelve letters among the five of them and yet at the end they were making mistakes and getting beat in ways you would expect of much younger lines. Collins would make the same mistakes again and again and again. He and Noteboom looked like they were on roller skates at the end of the year.
It is one thing to draw up blocking schemes on a chalk board and another to teach the position for individual mastery of the position. The change at OC got most of the attention, but the hiring of Chris Thomsen was the biggest change for the future of the program.
In response to 2013 and the 4-8 result in 2013 I never felt the team was just going through the motions, only twice were the Frogs really out of a game, and from the start it seemed that the staff was struggling with the 2016 team.
FYI:
One of the moderators on a TCU board mentioned recently that Cumbie and Meacham spent most of the last month of the season not talking to one another.
That reminds me a lot of my first marriage, actually.
Ian,
I don’t have a good feel on this, but it seems Coy’s path is one we have seen more than once. High school d-line/TE with a frame to gain weight to go with the good feet and agility.
Not even close to saying he will be Connor Williams, but that is the path taken by TCU’s Joseph Noteboom who has a chance to get a shot in the NFL after next year. Even if Coy doesn’t become Noteboom and is only Clint Murphy that would be a nice piece for the Frogs running game.
Maybe this summer I will go back and look at the number of high school TE/D-Line who ended up tackles.