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Jarvis Baxter JUCO WR


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Some thoughts:

 

1. Size/Strength: Obviously he's not a big guy. Let's classify him him the Antonio Brown/Emmanuel Sanders mold. Probably in more than one way, truth be told. From our own neigbborhood, we'll compare him tangibly to Chris Dunkley. Again that comparison probably holds in more than one way. I wouldn't classify him as strong. Nor would I say he's a good blocker. There are a few instances where he gets after it a little but not in any way that stands out.

 

2. Speed: This is where he becomes enigmatic. There are a lot of instances where he is clearly so fast that guys covering him can't handle it. They're purely outclassed in the speed/quickness department. He will run a deep vertical against perfect press-man coverage, where a guy opens his hips at exactly the right time, and it doesn't matter. It looks unfair. Yet when he gets into the open after a catch, he gets caught from behind. That's very difficult to wrap your head around. With a Ted Ginn for example, if he broke into the open forget about it. He will open up that gait and the distance from other defenders would only keep increasing. Normally you would say that he has more quickness and acceleration than top speed and that's fine. We've seen that a million times before. But I'd swear he's creating separation consistent with guys that have top speed advantages...and then that advantage is just failing to show up in select situations. There are probably two possibilities. Either he is indeed a fast guy, think DeSean Jackson, and he needs a lot of strength/conditioning work to get his legs strong enough that he can cut or slow down and then re-accelerate back to his top gear...or he is indeed one of those guys that is just a lot quicker than fast and the JUCO landscape is one where there will commonly be one guy in the secondary that has legit speed whereas the rest do not. Either way his HUDL profile from high school says 4.48 and I find that believable. His ESPN profile says 4.85 and I find that laughable. I could **** well tell the difference between 4.48 and 4.85 with my naked eye even if there were no other players on the field.

 

3. Quickness/Acceleration: There are two things that constitute the most impressive aspects of his game. The first is his speed control. The second, I'll get to later. He has an impressive amount of control over his faculties while on the hoof. He runs balanced with good ground-to-foot contact, a wide footprint. This gives him the balance to cut without losing a lot of speed and he uses this to immense advantage at Trinity Valley. He gets open VERY easily. But he's also able to control his speed by accelerating and decelerating, rather than just through cuts. He has really good gearing, slow to quick, quick to slow, quick to stop, stop to start, etc.

 

4. Hand-Eye Coordination: This is the second most impressive aspect of his game. I'm not necessarily impressed by the one-handed catches or his ability to pull in the ball after it's popped up in the air a few times. I'm more interested in how consistently he can locate the football in the air, adjust to it, and haul the football in with his hands while running in fourth gear WITHOUT jumping into the air as a means of steadying his eyes. This is not an easy thing to do. I've heard the quality referred to as "quiet eye". The process of locating a football in the air and tracking to it is not an easy one. Your eyes need to focus on the ball in flash images with high enough resolution that you're able to process the flash images through your past experiences which tell you exactly where the football is coming in. This is all neuroscience stuff which has been studied and related to football by many people much smarter than I. One shortcoming many receivers have is the inability quiet their vision long enough to focus on the ball and get the necessary perception data, unless they slow down their footfalls or stop them altogether via a jump into the air. Probably the first thing I noticed with Jarvis Baxter is that he does this all very fluidly and at a very fast pace. He genuinely scores high marks in this area of evaluation.

 

5. Return Prowess: Something I kept wanting to see more of in the HUDL video was his returning because I could tell by his receiver work that he must be a good return man. Sure enough it would appear he's got 245 yards on 12 punt returns in two years with Trinity Valley. That's a 20.4 yard punt return average, which is immense. Probably the most impressive thing about it is the fact he only scored one touchdown. That sounds counter-intuitive but it points to a consistency of his punt return work, as opposed to for example him having 70% of his punt return yardage coming on two big returns. He had punt returns of 52, 45, 36 and 36 yards. Even if you take away those four he still averages nearly 10 yards per punt return on the remaining 8. That's consistency. On the downside, some things I saw on HUDL tape make me wonder about how safe he is at fielding the punts. An area for exploration.

 

6. Production: This kid is very productive at the JUCO level. In 2013 he had 49 catches for 767 yards and 8 TDs. In 2014 he increased that to 58 catches for 1108 yards 17 TDs. Probably only three receivers (Damian Ratley & Dede Westbrook both from Blinn College, or Patrick Bolton of Rochester Community College) can boast as good or better receiving production at the JUCO level. Baxter is clearly top four or five in that regard. In terms of archetypes you can think of Baxter like Odell Beckham versus Westbrook's Brandin Cooks. Westbook is the small super fast guy with 4.38 speed that plays inside and does crazy things with the football in his hands because he's faster than everyone, but who might not have the real polish as a receiver that you want to see. And of course Patrick Bolton is Sammy Watkins, except with more penchant toward one-handed catches. Seen that guy make one-handers look easy with both his right hand AND left hand. He's tall but built for speed. Ratley would be like an Allen Robinson, clearly the big physical specimen at 6'2", very well rounded and dangerous in many ways. Baxter is a guy that has great balance and route running ability, great hands, speed and quickness that kill defenders, and looks equally interesting on the perimeter as he would in the slot. Of all those receivers, Baxter probably gets open the best by virtue of his route running against legit coverage. He's probably the best technical receiver among them.

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Nice write up parrothead.

Sounds to me like he might be stepping into playing time right away for us. I know we have a couple of red shirts also, but have to see him as the most polished possibly of any receiver expected on the roster.

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Nice write up parrothead.

Sounds to me like he might be stepping into playing time right away for us. I know we have a couple of red shirts also, but have to see him as the most polished possibly of any receiver expected on the roster.

More than Rodney Adams?  Or even Legree (xfr from Kentucky).  Not so fast here...we know less about Baxter than the other 2.

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I don't know anything about A.J. Legree but based on what I have seen of both players I would slot Jarvis Baxter ahead of Rodney Adams.

 

There is a possibility that Rodney Adams was just uncomfortable in a new environment and in new surroundings, but I thought he was very disappointing. Lots of drops, bad finishes, etc.

 

I would not at all be surprised if Jarvis Baxter immediately became the top producing receiver. In fact I'd probably forecast it. Though, I must say there are receivers on the team I really like (Ryeshene Bronson, Tyre McCants, Stanley Clerveaux).

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I don't know anything about A.J. Legree but based on what I have seen of both players I would slot Jarvis Baxter ahead of Rodney Adams.

 

There is a possibility that Rodney Adams was just uncomfortable in a new environment and in new surroundings, but I thought he was very disappointing. Lots of drops, bad finishes, etc.

 

I would not at all be surprised if Jarvis Baxter immediately became the top producing receiver. In fact I'd probably forecast it. Though, I must say there are receivers on the team I really like (Ryeshene Bronson, Tyre McCants, Stanley Clerveaux).

Hope you're right...can't have too many good WRs, and if he's better than Adams, he'll start.  I thought Adams did well early, but maybe got banged up or was victim to throwing most passes to Davis.

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I don't know anything about A.J. Legree but based on what I have seen of both players I would slot Jarvis Baxter ahead of Rodney Adams.

 

There is a possibility that Rodney Adams was just uncomfortable in a new environment and in new surroundings, but I thought he was very disappointing. Lots of drops, bad finishes, etc.

 

I would not at all be surprised if Jarvis Baxter immediately became the top producing receiver. In fact I'd probably forecast it. Though, I must say there are receivers on the team I really like (Ryeshene Bronson, Tyre McCants, Stanley Clerveaux).

Hope you're right...can't have too many good WRs, and if he's better than Adams, he'll start.  I thought Adams did well early, but maybe got banged up or was victim to throwing most passes to Davis.

 

Yup, Adams had a nagging groin injury toward the end of the season. I think he'll be fine, once next season rolls around. I like what I saw out of him in the early part of the season, as he gave me more confidence than Deonte Welch catching the ball.

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ckparrothead - Wes Welker type?

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We need someone to fill the hole Andre Davis will be leaving us. 

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We need someone to fill the hole B.J. Daniels left us.

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We need someone to fill the hole B.J. Daniels left us.

 

http://thebullspen.com/topic/95125-2015-qbs/

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