The Minter Commitment

Early this past Saturday, on the day of the Spring Game, Kevin Minter of Suwanee, Georgia committed to play football at LSU.  Minter is listed at 6'0" 230#, with a 4.6 40 yard dash.  His videos show him playing everything from defensive tackle to linebacker.  He projects to be a middle linebacker at the next level.  It appears from reports that he will have no difficulty qualifying academically.

He seems like a good kid, one who will be a good addition to the team both in terms of athletic ability and character.  If you trust his 4.6 second 40 time, he is plenty fast enough to be a hard-hitting middle linebacker, and he looks plenty strong.  He is outside of the Rivals250, but he is being recruited by USC which tells me he's probably a low 4-star at worst.

His videos, I think, test the limits of my ability to evaluate talent, which is something I've said before that I am not that great at.  Sometimes I can look at a video and really tell that a kid is something special.  I think a baboon could watch Russell Shepard and know he is a fantastic prospect at one position or another.  It's a little harder with a player like Minter, and I think it's beyond my abilities.

I have watched the videos of Minter and fellow targets Jon Bostic, Chris Williams, Frankie Telfort, Willie Ferrell, and others and I cannot really tell much of a difference between those players.  They all hit hard, shed blocks, and outrun running backs with ease at the high school level.  It's hard to differentiate.  Honestly, the most impressive linebacker video I have seen of any of our publicized recruiting targets is that of West Monroe linebacker Barkevious Mingo, who also has one of the best names in all of football.  None of them look as good as Andalusia linebacker Nico Johnson's videos, but I don't think we have a legitimate shot at getting him.

I am really interested in knowing what coaches look for in a linebacker's videos, because I sure don't see anything to differentiate those guys.  Surely there must be something, but it is beyond my abilities to see.  Whatever they saw, they saw enough in Minter that they didn't want to wait to accept a commitment from him.  They wasted no time in getting to him.

The fact that they accepted a commitment from Minter at this early stage says to me that Minter is one of the two best out-of-state linebackers that the coaches believe they have a realistic chance of signing.  That says a lot about Minter, especially considering how much luck we're having pursuing out of state recruits this year.  With all those people interested, they really wanted Minter, perhaps above all others.

We'll probably take two more linebackers, perhaps three more.