January 18 Legacy RISE Impressions

It was great to be back at Legacy! Every year, Legacy hosts a handful of great prospect camps. These camps are always extremely professional and well-run. Saturday was no different. Right before the Detroit Lions ripped my heart out, Legacy provided a look at a few athletes I've been really wanting to get an eye on.    Gwilly was my #1 player to watch heading into this camp. First off, I really, really like Mahti's tape. He was the heart and soul of the Utica offense, displaying excellent contact balance and hard north-south running.   So, I wondered if Mahti's camp performance would back up his performance on tape.   Mahti looks the part. Slim, sprinter build, long limbs. He was consistently the quickest and most explosive RB in the initial agility drills. Then, a slight issue arose during 1on1s with linebackers. Although Mahti is a very explosive and fast player, he has underdeveloped agility in open space. When making a move (juke, stutter step, etc), Mahti stands quite high, and his feet aren't quite as quick as I'd like.   Still, Mahti's athletic profile and tape speak for themselves. A little raw in some areas, but still Division 2 traits.     You could spot Murtadha from a mile away. I didn't know of Murtadha before the showcase, but I immediately circled him on my roster because of his excellent size.   Keeping things brief- I project that Murtadha will be a Division 2 prospect next year. The size will be a major draw. His pass blocking is OK right now, but he could use some improvement. For one, Murtadha needs to work on his punch. His hands are in good position- up and ready to punch, but he consistently failed to bring the heat to the opposing linemen. Murtadha had some good reps where he got his hands in position, locking out and stonewalling his opposition.   Murtadha has other footwork/hands issues to clean up, but they are 1000% all fixable. Fix most of those issues, he could be a D1 prospect. Fix just a few, and he's a GLIAC guy.     I get the hype around Cooper now. Very consistently, Cooper got the ball out quicker than any QB, while throwing absolute missiles to every portion of the field. Even though it looked like he was throwing as hard as he possibly could every throw, Cooper was still pretty darn accurate.   Coaches at Legacy love him, he had great stats this season, and the trajectory is only up from here. The one major issue is that Cooper is well below 6'0", which will significantly limit his college opportunities. Because of his size, Cooper had a Division 3 ceiling.     I've been a tad critical of Kayd in the past, but I actually thought he was the best QB of the day.   Consistent throwing motion, accurate to all parts of the field, effortlessly threw the ball with great velocity. In a very basic camp format, Kayd excelled, as he should. I'm still not completely sold on his IQ, throw under pressure, and a few other things, but it's apparent that Kayd is a very talented QB. I could definitely see Kayd earning playing time at a Division 1 school, but you can't go wrong anywhere in the GLIAC either.     I've always said option QBs need to really impress me in order for me to seriously think of them as a college QB prospect. In fact, from all of the great Veer QBs I've watched from Adams and Seaholm, I've never seen a more polished passer than [player_tooltip player_id='566987' first='Ryland' last='Watters'].   Ryland is a tall and well-built lefty. In the reps I watched, Ryland threw a few very accurate out routes with high velocity and one nicely placed fade route. A great performance here and QB MVP at our Prep Redzone camp makes me very confident in his abilities as a passer. My big question is if he has the IQ to make those necessary reads as a pro-style passer.   Ryland is simply too talented, too good of a runner, and too well-built to not be a GLIAC quarterback. I know he runs an option offense, and that may scare away some colleges, but I firmly believe that every GLIAC should offer Ryland.     Rihan caught my eye during my short time evaluating the defensive linemen.   In short, he was consistently quick off the ball and had very active hands. Quite a few instances where Mohamad immediately won his rep by quickly and violently swiping the opposing hands away. At other times, Mohamad got stiffed by the offensive lineman and really struggled to recover afterward.   Still a ton of extremely quick pass rush W's. Defensive tackles with active hands are pretty dang hard to come by, and I believe that Mohamad could be a force at the next level- D3 or D2.     I'm extremely intrigued to see how the market views Tristian this offseason. For most of his career, I believe he was a Tight End. Now, he seems to have made the switch to tackle.   I don't have too many notes on Comer from the showcase- mainly that he was the most athletic lineman in attendance, but his fundamentals were pretty raw. He still displayed great effort, a decent punch, and I can tell that he's not completely lost with the fundamentals. Plus, on tape, Tristian is pretty dang physical.   Tristian's size, proven physicality, and stardom on the basketball court make for an extremely intriguing tackle prospect for this recruiting cycle. I'd fully expect a GLIAC school to take a shot at Tristian, but we'll see.

It was great to be back at Legacy! Every year, Legacy hosts a handful of great prospect camps. These camps are always extremely professional and well-run. Saturday was no different. Right before the Detroit Lions ripped my heart out, Legacy provided a look at a few athletes I've been really wanting to get an eye on.