Uncovered Gems - Northern MI Legends #3

More prospects from Northern Michigan! This league has been very fun to cover. The vast majority of media coverage is focused on the bigger schools in the Detroit / Grand Rapids area, and these (very good) "Up North" teams barely get any attention. Well, now's the time to highlight five more potential prospects. This time, we've got players from Boyne City, TCC, Kingsley, and St. Francis.    Drew has a few traits that I always look for in Quarterbacks.   A couple of big ones 1. are throw velocity, and 2. being relatively calm in the pocket. Drew's first highlight is a laser to the middle of the field, leading to a 65-yard TD. Then, at 0:37, Drew does a great job of throwing over a couple of linebackers to the deep crossing route (still with good velocity). Finally, it seems like Drew does a good job at quickly scanning the field and finding open receivers.   Drew is still raw in many areas. Though, for a small-school quarterback, I am very impressed. I could easily see Drew working his way up on a NAIA roster and becoming an excellent college football player.      Owen has a good variety of highlights. His tape begins with a very impressive off-tackle run. This play showcased good contact balance, and even a nasty stiff arm at the end. Following that up, Owen catches a 50/50 ball with a DB right on him. Good job, but against better competition, he'd need to high-point it and catch with his hands.   The rest of Owen's tape showcases several other highlights at receiver, usually deep routes where Drew throws an absolute dime. They obviously have a great connection! There's also a handful of defensive and special teams plays featured. Owen is generally raw in all three phases, but showcases good speed and great instincts on some occasions.      Kingsley is a team defined by their offensive line and running backs. This past season, Perry did an excellent job as a Sophomore on Varsity.   Perry's best highlight comes at 1:08. He does an excellent job of hitting the intended hole and easily picks up the first down, but then, Perry hits the open field, sidesteps a few tackles, and gains several extra yards. Sure, some of the home-run touchdowns are nice, but even though this wasn't a TD, this play showed an ability to fight for extra yards. 3:11 is another play worth a quick mention. You need to be able to block if you're a RB in a Power-T offense, and Perry lays an excellent lead block here. I'd love to see several more of these blocks on next year's tape!   Perry is a solid running back! He still has a little over a year before most colleges look at the Class of 2027, and in that time, I'd expect a lot of improvement.      The Quarterback of a Power-T offense has one of the most unique and increasingly rare jobs in football. Tucker took that unique job in stride this year and put together a good highlight tape.   His tape kicks off with a very accurate throw 25-yards downfield. Already promising. Then, another good deep pass to his running back screaming wide-open in the middle of the field. Finally, at 0:39, a very accurate throw to a heavily covered receiver. I could nitpick Tucker's mechanics, footwork, etc, but the fact of the matter is that he runs his offense very well. When it's time to throw the football, you can count on Tucker to deliver an accurate ball. That play at 0:39 in particular makes me confident that he can make big throws in big moments.   Tucker is also a solid athlete. Plays like 0:26 show solid speed and open-field vision. In a Power-T scheme, you can't go wrong with utilizing your QB as a rusher.   An overall good highlight tape. I'm excited to see if Tucker is able to earn any offers this Spring!      To put things simply, Zack does his job, and he does it well.   Not too fancy of a highlight tape or evaluation- Zack consistently explodes off the ball, has excellent leverage, and works hard to drive his opponent backward. Zack does have a tendency to lunge, and it's very difficult to get a good eval of Zack because of how often he speeds up and slows down his tape (please, no slow-mo or speeding up).   Zack could be ranked during this next update as a fringe NAIA prospect. His height will unfortunately limit him in the recruiting process.

More prospects from Northern Michigan! This league has been very fun to cover. The vast majority of media coverage is focused on the bigger schools in the Detroit / Grand Rapids area, and these (very good) "Up North" teams barely get any attention. Well, now's the time to highlight five more potential prospects. This time, we've got players from Boyne City, TCC, Kingsley, and St. Francis.