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| Plymouth (IN) Plymouth offensive guard Dan Samuelson (image via Scout) |
Samuelson stands 6'5" and 290 lbs. He claims a 5.3 forty, a 315 lb. bench, and a 405 lb. squat
Ratings:
ESPN: 3-star OT, 75 grade, #87 OT
Rivals: 3-star OG, #31 OG
Scout: 4-star OT, #25 OT
247 Sports: 3-star OG, 89 grade, #13 OG
Samuelson is a big body who looks like he could play center or right guard at the next level. He shows a decent ability to drive block, and he likes to knock people around. He flashes the ability to fire off the ball low and root out linemen. It's tough to get a great feel for his all-around game because he plays for a heavily run-oriented team.
It will take some adjusting for Samuelson to play at the next level. He plays a little high, especially when moving to the second level, and he lacks some ability to move laterally. He also needs to become more tenacious and stay on his blocks. Right now he's a guy who blocks using mainly his upper body, and he fails to keep his feet after impact. His coaches appear to teach shoulder blocking, which is common in an option offense, but he will likely have to learn hand placement to succeed in college. There are very few available clips of his pass sets, but from what I saw, he needs to work on remaining balanced and keeping active feet throughout the play.
Overall, Samuelson has some ability, but he appears to be significantly behind the other linemen in the class. Almost all young linemen need to add weight and strength, but he lags behind in overall athleticism and might be the least technically developed of the linemen outside of Logan Tuley-Tillman. He looks like a depth player more than a front-line prospect. With Kyle Kalis a year ahead of him and both Kyle Bosch and David Dawson penciled in at guard in the current class, Samuelson might never glimpse the field except in a backup role.
This is the 25th commitment in the class of 2013 and the sixth offensive lineman. The talk is that Michigan could take up to 28 players in the class, and perhaps seven offensive linemen. Corona (CA) Centennial offensive guard Cameron Hunt, who is "committed" to Cal, also took an official visit to Michigan this weekend.
Here are Samuelson's highlights on Hudl.
TTB Rating: 65
What is your opinion on taking a seventh lineman? Also, is that opinion different since Samuelson committed and not Hunt?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that 6 is the perfect number. As of now, there will be 14 scholarship offensive lineman in the fall. With only 2 graduating after next season and my guess is a minimum of 4 taken in the class of 2014... we'll run into too much congestion among the underclassmen which leads to transfers. I'd honestly be surprised if all of these 2013 kids stayed with Michigan through their collegiate careers. I hate to speculate, but Fox's injury will put him behind his classmates. With the blue chip guys Hoke will continue to get, Mr. Fox's best prospects to play may lie elsewhere.
I probably would have wanted Michigan to stop recruiting linemen if Hunt had committed and not Samuelson, but I don't have a strong feeling either way. You're absolutely right that these guys won't all stick around for the duration of their careers. I think you can expect at least two or three of these guys to quit, transfer, etc. That's just the nature of attrition.
DeleteHonestly, I am disappointed that this commitment took place/was allowed to happen. I was fine with UM only taking 5 OL in the class and would only have been happy with a 6th OL if it was Hunt. Now, I expect Hunt will end up somewhere other than UM and we have taken a career 3rd stringer/special teams guy. Obviously, I hope Samuelson proves me wrong but I am not at all confident that this will be anything but a "wasted" scholarship.
ReplyDeleteOffensive linemen are difficult to project. Thunder does his best to give a fair evaluation, but nobody knows whether this kid will be a permanent back-up or All-Big10. Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin’s former OC all think he can be a starter someday, so don’t assume he’s automatically a scrub or special teams player.
DeleteMichigan absolutely NEEDS 5 starters to come from the '12 and '13 classes. Historically, Michigan has a 50-60% rate of getting a starter-caliber player out of recruit - through 5 years. Michigan needs these 2 classes to produce those starters within 2 or 3 years. 11 guys isn't too many.
ReplyDeleteYou can never tell how a recruit is going to pan out, see Dan O'Neil or Kurt Wermers, they were higher rated than Perry Dorrestein or Mark Hyuge just to give an example, we did use those guys and were important in the team when they were upperclassmen. Even Omameh was a 3 or 4 year contributor having arrived as a 2 star project. There is certainty that a couple of this and 2012 kids won't pan out, maybe because they'll see no playing time and won't want to spend their college careers riding the pine or maybe some will wait for their time like Elliot Mealer did and contribute to the team for one or to years but it's a matter that will solve itself out and there's no need of us fans speculating, as of now no 2012 or 2013 guys have played a down at the college level yet so they'll just have to compete and sort this out.
ReplyDelete