Our weekly #TwitterTuesday file continues this week in which readers ask National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell football questions via social media. Here are four questions we chose including Farrell’s take on Trevor Lawrence vs. Justin Fields.
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Right now it’s close between the two and their performances this weekend did nothing to change that.
Lawrence is a bit more polished and can make more of the big throws than Fields. People underestimate Lawrence’s ability to move around the pocket, evade the rush and put himself in position to keep his eyes downfield while avoiding traffic. He’s certainly not the athlete that Fields is and won’t be hurdling linebackers anytime soon, but when it comes to effectiveness under center I’ll take Lawrence over Fields by a solid margin right now.
Both prospects have a ton of talent and that’s why we have them No. 1 and No. 2 in the country, but what we saw this weekend from Lawrence is what we’ve seen for the last two seasons while Fields has made his improvements more recently. However, there’s a solid chance that Fields has a better college career, depending on where he commits, and Lawrence ends up as the quarterback the NFL wants.
This will be fun to watch.
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For me it has to be Penn State running back Saquon Barkley. Now we had him ranked pretty high at No. 117 in the country but to have college football’s best player outside our top 10 at running back isn’t up to our standards.
In what was a great year at running back in 2015, we had prospects such as Damien Harris, Derrius Guice, L.J. Scott, Mike Weber and Ronald Jones II among others ranked ahead of Barkley.
I’m not sure what we missed on Saquon. Barkley was named Big School Mr. Pennsylvania after his senior year when he rushed for 1,851 yards and 24 touchdowns but never got to show his stuff on the big stage in either the Under Armour All-America Game or the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. Perhaps if we had seen him there instead of at the Offense-Defense Bowl, he might have had a chance to wow us one last time but regardless he was more special than we thought.
The lowest he was in our rankings was No. 199 and the highest was No. 101 but he never cracked the Rivals100 in 2015 and right now that looks almost criminal.
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The Buckeyes are off to a great start, but at this stage it’s more important to look at average star ranking than it is to look at the points total because some teams have more commitments than others. When you focus on average star ranking, the Buckeyes continue to look as if they’re in great shape to finish No. 1. They lead the country with a 4.0-average star ranking and are involved with five-star talent such as Micah Parsons, Anthony Cook, Jackson Carman and others.
Alabama is always a threat to take the top spot and, even with a slower start this year, the Tide will push. USC is another school I can see having a huge year and pushing toward the top, while Miami and Georgia will be in that range as well. Clemson doesn’t appear to have the room to push for No. 1 and after that you look at Texas, Penn State and perhaps Florida State.
Right now I like the Buckeyes to win the No. 1 spot for the first time in Rivals.com history.
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Even though both teams have a lot of experience on the roster, you have to assume a couple of true freshmen will make a big impact.
The first name that comes to mind is Florida State running back Cam Akers, who should see plenty of time perhaps splitting work with Jacques Patrick. FSU wide receiver Tamorrion Terry could also see some work as well as he’s among the top four receivers on the depth chart right now. Akers is not a surprise but Terry is, at least to me, although he does have good size and is physically ready for college football.
Defensively, linebacker Leonard Warner could see some time for the Seminoles, as could cornerback Stanford Samuels. Khalan Laborn, like Akers, was a five-star running back last year and could see some time in the return game although that’s not as likely.
Alabama’s defense is replacing a lot of key personnel so Dylan Moses or Chris Allen might see some time on the field. However, on offense wide receivers Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs and Devonta Smith could all make an impact. We could also see former five-star Jedrick Wills as the sixth lineman. Najee Harris is a possibility as well although the Tide's running back position is loaded.
What’s impressive is how talented both of these rosters are and how impressive the true freshmen have to be just to make the two-deep.
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