TAKE TWO: Will Bryan Bresee be Clemson's next five-star commit?
Since he was in middle school, Tate Martell has had his eye on college since he committed to Washington entering the 8th grade. The former four-star quarterback from Las Vegas Bishop Gorman backed off that pledge and then pledged to Texas A&M later in high school.
That also did not work out and Martell, who was undefeated as a starter at Gorman where he threw for 7,507 and 113 touchdowns and rushed for 2,294 yards and 35 more scores, ended up at Ohio State, which had been involved for a long time in his recruitment.
Ranked as the second-best dual-threat quarterback in the 2017 class behind only Kellen Mond and one spot ahead of Tua Tagovailoa, Martell redshirted in his freshman season with the Buckeyes and then sat behind Dwayne Haskins this past year.
With Haskins off to the NFL, Martell was in line to compete - if not be the front-runner - for the starting quarterback job at Ohio State. Then former five-star quarterback Justin Fields transferred from Georgia to Ohio State, gained immediate eligibility and then Martell was off again to look for another landing spot.
Quickly, that became Miami where he’s battling N’Kosi Perry and Jarren Williams for the starting job and by the looks of the Hurricanes’ scrimmage on Saturday, Martell is far away from becoming the starter.
CaneSport.com reported Martell was one of the losers on the day: “QB Tate Martell threw several bad balls, including an overthrown pass down the middle that was intercepted by DJ Ivey and a deep pass attempt that came out of his hands end on end and went nowhere near any receiver … plus he simply fell down after a play-action handoff for a 10-yard loss.”
The Athletic’s Manny Navarro described Martell’s play this way on Twitter: “Tate Martell just got sacked by the turf monster. Literally slipped down. He then threw a screwball/wounded animal down the middle of the field. Yikes!!”
It’s still early. And it’s still spring football. And the Miami quarterback job is far from settled especially since the Hurricanes’ quarterbacks played so poorly last season.
We ask Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell whether Martell was overrated coming out of high school even though he had such an excellent prep career or once Martell gets his feet under him if he could be the answer to many of Miami’s offensive woes and Saturday's performance was just a stumble before a brighter future.
FARRELL'S TAKE
This is a tough call because I had and still have very high hopes for Martell in college and I thought Miami would be a perfect fit. But it appears he’s running third in the quarterback race and looked horrible this past weekend. It is just spring football so a lot of this doesn’t matter but if he can’t win the job then what’s next? He was so good in high school and so excellent at free lancing that I thought he’d be a star in college despite be lack of size but now I just don’t know. I still believe he can be very good but my confidence is wavering a bit. Let’s see how the spring plays out and see if he can win the job and if he does I think he’ll be just fine.
