*** I’m in New Jersey this weekend for a doubleheader. Friday night was a trip out to Flanders, N.J. at Mount Olive High School to watch the road team, Irvington (N.J.) High, home of 2023 Notre Dame safety pledge Adon Shuler. This afternoon is seeing 2022 commits Steve Angeli and Jayden Bellamy.
If the over/under of Shuler’s game was set at 2.5 total points, you’d imagine the over would’ve been a good bet, but Irvington fell 2-0 in one of the more bizarre matchups I’ve seen.
*** I got to the game two hours early and spent a lot of time throughout the next few hours watching how Shuler interacts with his teammates and what his overall body language is (things you can’t see on highlights or a TV broadcast most times), and I was blown away. Remember, this is the young man who committed to Notre Dame at 15 years old (and still might be 15). And he has excellent leadership skills and is certainly the “quarterback” of his defense. Before every snap, Shuler was getting his players in the right positions, signaling out the coverage and encouraging his teammates after a good or bad play. The biggest takeaway for me on Shuler was his leadership. That is big to me.
*** Another big takeaway is his versatility. This is something we talked about with Shuler when he committed, as it was apparent on tape that he could do a lot of different things as a football player, and it was clear on Friday night too. He played field and boundary safety. He lined up out wide and in the slot at receiver. His team didn’t attempt any field goals or PATs, but Shuler is even his team’s holder. He helps in run support and has great range as a safety. There really is no telling what this kid can be at the next level. He could play either safety spot, but his frame could lead him to growing into a rover, and he’d be scary good at that position.
*** He certainly looks the part too. Shuler has a swagger about him and fills out his pads well. This kid screams SEC safety. He’s athletic, has ball skills, hits like a train and has great speed for someone his age. The sky is the limit for Shuler.
*** As for Shuler’s stats, he had three or four tackles, a punt return of about 30-35 yards that was called back for a hold, a reception on a bubble screen from the slot for about 4-5 yards and a pass defended – which you can see in the video below – that may have been pass interference but it wasn’t called. Shuler did a nice job trying to make a play on the ball, which is why I think the flag wasn’t thrown, even though he made clear contact with the receiver.
*** Shuler was by far the best football player on the field. On his top play of the game, he was lined up on one hash, identified a run play going towards the other hash, ran downhill and made a huge hit on the running back. Watch it in the clip below and make sure your sound is turned up so you can hear the pop. That was a heck of a play by Shuler.
*** When I was taking notes pregame for items to write about in this post, one of them was to mention how talented two of Shuler’s teammates are – class of 2023 wide receivers Famah Toure and Nasir Addison. Toure is a big-bodied, 6-4, 200-pound receiver who I could see Notre Dame recruiting, while Addison is a good-looking slot receiver with size at 6-2. However, both of these guys dropped what would have been game winning touchdowns, so that left a bad taste in my mouth. Irvington had the ball at the Mount Olive 25 yard line on 4th and 15 with :30 left, and their quarterback threw his best pass of the night to Toure down the right sideline, and he dropped it. Click here to watch the final play of the ga
Irvington’s quarterback was brought down for a safety in the first quarter. Other than that, there was no scoring the rest of the game. It was still an exciting game because both teams would drive down the field, but the offenses still never scored. It was a bizarre outing.
