Minnesota Mr. Football Matchup: Jake Ratzlaff vs. Antonio Montero

We’re at that point in the spring where things are traditionally slow in the football world. In a pleasant twist this year despite a ton of hardship, we have been graced by FCS football, but usually, this is the point in the year where football is at its most idle, so I was thinking of trying out some new article ideas for our awesome subscribers of PrepRedzoneMN. One idea I’ve been excited to experiment with involves the coveted Mr. Football trophy and the stud seniors to win the award that the state of MN has produced over the years. There were a few ways I think about going with this article, but something that has always really stood out to me about the award is that I can truly say the selection goes to the best player in the state, regardless of position. Especially in college football, the high-profile awards seem to have transformed into whoever the best QB or RB is, but I think the Minnesota Mr. Football selection members do a great job of honoring the spirit of the award and bestowing it to the best over football player. That got me thinking that maybe there was a way I could compare and evaluate all of the past Mr. Football winners, and that led me to the idea of a head to head matchup where I could highlight, contrast, and review the athletes’ strengths in an attempt to name the ultimate Mr. Football.   [caption id="attachment_130997" align="alignright" width="300"]<img class="wp-image-130997 size-medium" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/redzone/uploads/2021/04/4371599_67c1122ba8d543a09eb5c8a18875ca85-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /> [player_tooltip player_id="1571" first="Antonio" last="Montero"] - Eden Prairie[/caption][caption id="attachment_130998" align="alignnone" width="300"]<img class="wp-image-130998 size-medium" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/redzone/uploads/2021/04/9031837_2338e7cb0a554446b62116fcac4628b0-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /> [player_tooltip player_id="18027" first="Jake" last="Ratzlaff"] - Rosemount[/caption]  The fact that there is a wide variety of positions represented among the winners only made things more intriguing to me, and I wanted to start things off and feature this year’s winner [player_tooltip player_id="18027" first="Jake" last="Ratzlaff"]. The Rosemount Irish senior SS/LB/TE/ATH is committed to play LB at the University of Wisconsin and finished his prep football career as the most dominant two-way player in the state in 2020, as well as one of the hardest hitters in the state and an overall electric and natural football player. His senior and junior Hudl tapes are as exciting as they get, as hard hits, long TDs, and even a hurdle or two grace your screen with highlights, and on top of it all, he was for a long time committed to play hockey for the University of Minnesota, cementing the special athleticism in the Badger signee. Today he will be matched up against 2017 award winner from Eden Prairie [player_tooltip player_id="1571" first="Antonio" last="Montero"], who was an exhilarating RB and LB for the Eagles and is currently playing LB for the Rice Owls and doing a great job at it to boot. What I’m going to do with these features is compare and contrast the two Mr. Football winners on some different criteria, including strength, speed, athleticism, whose film is more exciting, high school production, college success (if applicable), and some position-specific comparisons. In this case, we’ll look at tackling, blitzing ability, football IQ, block defeat, and coverage. Find out who comes out on top below! Thanks for reading. Ratzlaff vs. Montero Strength We got a tough one to start things off. To begin, I’m assuming that if they had a head-to-head weight room lift-off as seniors in high school, Montero would most likely come out as a winner. EP has a really good weight room program, and Ratzlaff spent a lot of his free time playing hockey, so I would think that Montero had spent a little bit more time lifting in high school. It’s important to note that Ratzlaff does play and look very strong on film, and I think he weighs more than Montero did as a senior, so it’s a tight race here either way. However, Montero plays with just a tad more oomph and has a more compact frame, so I gotta name the Winner: Montero Speed An easier decision here, this one has to go to Ratzlaff. As a prep, he got reps as both a TE and a SS, and the speed shows up on film a lot more as Ratzlaff used that speed to blitz like his hair is on fire, block punts, and pulled away from defenders when he had the ball in his hand after catches or turnovers on defense. Montero was definitely more of a power runner as a RB, and although he had great cuts, the top-end speed just shows up a lot more for the Rosemount star. Winner: Ratzlaff Athleticism Athleticism can be a hard one to gauge. To preface things, both of these guys are fantastic athletes. A couple of great ways I try to track athleticism besides from straight-up evaluating the film is whether the prospect plays both ways for his high school team and if the kid plays and succeeds at multiple sports. For the first point, both kids played both ways, as Montero doubled as a RB for the Eagles and Ratzlaff helped out as a TE. Ratzlaff did also show some good reps on special teams as well, as he blocked a punt or two in his prep career, but Montero probably wouldn’t need to help out on ST as much at Eden Prairie due to the depth and roster size the team possesses year in and year out. Montero also showed some nifty footwork and dynamic ability as a RB, and was utilized a lot more often on offense than his Rosemount counterpart. The big separator here for me is the fact that Ratzlaff was a long time former Minnesota Gophers hockey commit, and although I’m pretty sure that Montero did play other sports in high school, he didn’t receive any D1 interest for those sports, so that kind of puts things over the edge for me in favor of the future Irish alum. Winner: Ratzlaff Film The most fun of the criteria to grade here, I made sure to watch the entirety of both athletes’ senior and junior highlight tapes so I get as much context as I could find. The winner of this one goes to who possesses the most exciting film, but I again wanted to preface things by noting both of these guys have really fun to watch junior and senior Hudl tapes. Some things I find particularly exciting about prep highlight tapes are: 1) hard hits 2) splash plays 3) versatility (big plays from multiple positions) 4) outstanding hustle 5) swag and attitude. Both have very hard-hitting highlight tapes, and interestingly both players have harder hitting junior tapes than on their senior film, so this was kind of a wash. Ratzlaff made more splash plays from different positions, but both Mr. Football winners made a ton of overall splash plays. Additionally, both hustle their butts off, and both play with a ton of attitude and were the sparkplug of their teams, and also noteworthy is the fact that Montero has a much longer senior tape than Ratzlaff’s. This isn’t due to Ratzlaff making fewer plays, he just probably didn’t want to bother with his senior tape as much as he already had offers, so he just made a Top-15 for his senior season. I can’t lie, I think this one finishes as a Tie. Winner= Ratzlaff & Montero High School Production Ratzlaff: Started as a junior and posted 126 tackles, 12 TFLs, 4 PBUs and named First Team All-Metro and First Team All-State as a junior. Led team in tackles, defensive TDs, and interceptions as a senior, and tallied 70 tackles, 3.0 sacks, three interceptions, two fumble recoveries, and scored two defensive TDs in just six games. He finished his career with 261.5 tackles, 28.5 tackles for loss, 10.5 sacks, 12 hurries, five fumble recoveries, two forced fumbles, three interceptions, three blocked punts and two blocked field goals, and played tight end as a junior and senior and caught 33 passes for 714 yards with eight TDs. He was named a 2020 Butkus Award high school semifinalist, 2020 All-Metro and All-State First Team pick, and the 2020 Metro Football Player of the Year by StarTribune. Montero: Earned the starting role as LB as a junior a couple of games into the year. As a senior, won Metro Player of the Year, All-State and AP Defensive Player of the Year for coach Mike Grant as the Eagles capped an undefeated season with their tenth state championship. He was credited with 118 tackles (13 for losses), two interceptions and three forced fumbles on defense while rushing for 24 touchdowns as a senior and finished his career with 235 tackles (29 for losses), four forced fumbles, and three interceptions. Winner: Ratzlaff Collegiate Success This one is not currently as applicable, as Ratzlaff has yet to begin his collegiate career with Wisconsin, but I wanted to take this time to shoutout Montero and the success he’s found at Rice. The Eden Prairie Eagles graduate made a very late commitment to the Owls, but came in as a true freshman in 2018 and started seven of that last nine games for Rice and finished with 34 tackles and an interception. In 2019 he started 12 games and finished second on the team in tackles with 83 and added 5 TFLs, a sack, and 3 PBUs. In 2020 he started four games in the unparalleled 2020 season and posted 24 tackles and 1.5 TFLs. My man is killing it! Winner: Montero Linebacker Skills Tackling Both athletes are extremely hard hitters as I eluded to earlier, so the tackling portion of the comparison was a tough one, especially because you aren’t going to see missed tackles in a highlight tape of course. There are some things I can grade them on though, and that really comes down to technique. Fundamentally, Montero does a great job of staying square, wrapping up, exploding, and gator rolling through contact, and tracking the near hip when pursuing ball carriers. Ratzlaff is also a good tackler but puts his body in more compromising positions at times. It’s a small thing to knock, but I have to pick something here. Winner: Montero Blitzing Montero and Ratzlaff both show burst when they get out of their stance and are able to get through the OL and the LOS before lineman can react, but Montero did a lot more of his blitzing between the tackles and Ratzlaff off the edge. They played different positions, so that’s not a surprise, but Ratzlaff’s combination of speed and strength really allowed him to blitz and find success from anywhere on the line. Ratzlaff overall comes off the edge way hotter, showed that a blocker in his way won’t stop him, and finished hits in the backfield when blitzing with more authority. Winner: Ratzlaff Block Defeat Another tough criterion that both athletes excel at, this one was really hard to pick. Both Mr. Football winners were an absolute menace for opposing blockers to deal with, and both Ratzlaff and Montero were able to beat blocks with either speed or quickness, depending on how they were feeling that snap. Montero was an absolute brickwall in the gap or out in space, and when an opponent would put all of their efforts into trying to block him he would barely budge on film. However, Ratzlaff more consistently exploded through block attempts, landing quite a few opponents on their butts after trying to get in his way. That was a noteworthy and impressive part of his film, and it’s for that reason that I have to give a slight advantage to the Rosemount Irish winner and Badgers commit. Winner: Ratzlaff Coverage This one doesn’t really apply as much, as Ratzlaff and Montero played different LB positions and had vastly different assignments within their defenses, but coverage is still an important part of being a LB either way. The bottom line is Ratzlaff does have some experience as a SS, so he possesses a lot more range and can cover more ground in coverage. His instincts also got him around the ball more often in coverage, and he recorded more career interceptions. Winner: Ratzlaff Mr. Football Matchup Winner: [player_tooltip player_id="18027" first="Jake" last="Ratzlaff"] (Rosemount) 2020 Mr. Football Winner