Navy safety...
- Thread starter Pennick44
- Start date
Gilman's athletic and academic records are impeccable.
I'm an Air Force man, (ND always in my heart), but I'm honored to have a Midshipman now part of our Irish!
There is some speculation that he may petition to avoid having to sit out a year. Don't know the chances of it succeeding.
Bodizephax
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Gilman is a stud. The reason he left Navy early is because he has NFL potential. A ZERO star !! Take that Purse and Chase ! The Hawain stallion strikes again ! Brian "the Rain Maker" Polian !! We will be in the National Championship game again soon !! 76 tackles 5 tfl and a ff in only season played !! He has Warrior blood in him like Manti !! His best years are ahead !! Alohi ! Aloha !
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Since the military changed their policy on letting athletes go directly to the pros, he has a case.
I heard he has a good chance of getting it approved.
The service academies won't be able to recruit as well under the new policy.
What I like most about Gilman is this. Usually, when you're taking a kid who was completely unranked kid coming out of high school, you're taking the chance that he will be the exception (based on your evaluation) and not the rule. You're essentially counting on the fact that he'll be the 1 in 100 and worthy of the scholarship. In Gilman case, this is an extremely low risk transfer because it's already been proven that he's the exception and not the rule, when he played very well as a true freshman for a winning Navy squad. Furthermore, having played at Navy, you can count on a few things. First, grades, character and toughness will not be an issue, nor should his competitive spirit be an issue either. When you add all of that up, factor in the ND'S need for quality depth at the safety position and and look at the fact that this kid will be a mature, junior aged, player by time he suits up at ND (did 1 year at the Naval prep academy), who gets an entire 14 months of Balis before he'll be expected to play a down, this transfer is a no brainer. By 2018, there is no reason why we shouldn't expect a 6'0, 210lb strong safety, with knowledge of the system, who competes in the 2-deep for 2-3 years and is a core special teams player, particularly on the run teams.
Do you think there is little chance of him getting a waiver to play this year?
Bodizephax
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No it is not STU. It is like getting a proven college player --76 tackles as a true frosh. How many 4 or 5 star recruits at safety have not panned out at ND--See Max Redfield.
Bodizephax
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Good question Bodizephax... Max Redfield and? You asked the question as if ND has a track record of squandering elite talent at safety under Brian Kelly... Look at the 4 and 5 star safeties Kelly has coached. Harrison Smith. First round pick in the NFL draft. Zeke Motta. Multi year starter. Key component to the backend of the #2 defense in the country in 2012. Jamoris Slaughter. Should have been starting beside Motta in 2012. A high ankle sprained robbed him of his senior season. That leaves Max Redfield as the lone 4/5 star safety that you can argue never developed at ND under Kelly's watch. If you want to argue that Kelly has had a hard time attracting top end safeties, that's a valid point. We've seen a myriad of 3 star guys play to various levels of success, but the idea that ND has squandered a deep talent pool at safety is simply not true. They haven't landed them to even have an opportunity to waste their talent. Am I missing someone outside of Redfield?
As for Gilman, he reminds me a lot of Jamoris Slaughter. Not the 6'2, 220lb safety that Derrick Allen is, but he'll still come down into the box and take your head off. To be intentionally cliche, he's all day tough. I worry some about his range when asked to play man defense, but if Elko protects him, he could be a good one. That said, for the first time in a long time, ND actually has the type of safety talent that doesn't guarantee Gilman will even start. Jalen Elliott is a physical specimen and made huge strides in the spring at SS (same position as Gilman). Devin Studstill was nowhere near healthy, so it's unfair to judge him until we see him healthy in the fall. Isaiah Robertson surprised everyone with how physically ready he was coming in as an early enrollee. Until Derrick Allen arrives, there isn't a safety on ND's roster that stands 6'1.5, 215lbs who can flip his hips and run in coverage like Robertson can. He's another SS candidate that Gilman will have to beat out. Jordan Genmark-Heath is another, as he's set to arrive in South Bend via San Diego any day now. He's another physical specimen and a long, rangy SS type. Then there is Derrick Allen. He could skip his senior year and be the best safety on ND's roster tomorrow. The sky is the limit for him and although he projects at FS rather than SS, he'll certainly be non the field early and often as a freshman.
To me Gilman is a surefire 2-deep guy in 2018, but nowhere near a lock to start with likes of Elliott, Robertson, Genmark-Heath and maybe even Allen, competing for the same spot. If he was able to get a waiver in 2017, however, I could see him playing major minutes and bring a fixture on special teams.
How does one transfer from Navy? I figured it was like signing up for service, and you had to put your time in no matter what?
Only after you finish your second year & enroll for your third, that is when you sign your commitment papers.
Bodizephax
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Harrison Smith, Slaughter, Zeke Motta (and McCarthy which you did not mention) were Charlies recruits. Kelly did a great job of developing them but his track record at developing safties he has recruited has been unlucky. The guys you mentioned like Studstill Elliiot Robertson and Genmark Heath could very well develop into great safties who Kelly recruited. I am on board the Kelly/Elko train.
We had a great run of safeties recruited by Willingham and Weis---Zibby, Ndwueke, Harrison Smith, Kyle McCarthy, Motta, Jamoris Slaugher. Maybe we can make another great run.
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Bodizephax
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I remember telling the board when Max Redfield was recruited that he would be a better receiver than safety. I thought he could have been another Mike Floyd type. What do you think could of happened if Max went the receiver route?
I'm not disputing who recruited who, rather I'm simply pointing out that Kelly's problem isn't that he's squandered elite talent at safety, rather, he's failed to recruit high level safety talent in the first place. The vast majority of the guys he's landed at safety have been 3 star guys and some of them were position converts at the college level. That's his staff's fault. There is no denying that. But the fault lies in recruiting, not in development. You could argue that a guy like Matthias Farley developed far beyond his ranking. When factor in that he had played only 2 years of football and was a converted WR, ND's staff did good by him.
As for Max... That's always tough for me. I still simply don't believe he was a bad bad player. Rather, he played for a coordinator that asked him to do things he wasn't comfortable doing, clearly spent little time coaching technique and tackling, and failed to put a sound scheme on the field on Saturdays. Would Max have been a better WR? That's possible. But under a guy like Mike Elko that would have simplified his job, taught him how to tackle and took advantage of his athleticism would he have developed into a really nice safety prospect(his off the field behaviors aside)? I truly believe so.
Yep.
more information is always an advantage. I would make a guess that even just the spring and fall practice sessions will provide the staff with data that might make them more or less excited about a recruited player.
In this case the staff has had an entire season of games to evaluate the player.
I am so looking forward to this defense thinking less and playing more. Van Gorder was just a failed experiment.
Exactly.
Scheme is important when playing equal or better teams. When you line up across from Miami of Ohio, just play football & put it to them. Beat the man across from you at every position & it works itself out.
Scheme, fundamentals and development are more than half the battle. That's how inferior teams beat more talented teams on a routine basis in college football.
The easiest way of looking at it is this. A guy like Gilman probably runs a 4.6. A better athlete may run a 4.5 or a 4.45 even. That tenth of a second is only significant if both players were to diagnose a play, flip their hips engage in their pedal, or break on the ball, at three exact same speed. What Elko's defenses have been known to do is play fast and deliberate. Therefore, if a kid like Gilman running a 4.6, reads run a half second faster than a player who runs 4.5 and he uses learned fundamentals to break in the ball carrier at the proper angle, without wasted steps, he might get there 5-10 tenths faster than a better athlete, making a slower read and using less than ideal technique. Which is about the equivalent of saying he runs somewhere between a 3.6-4.1 relative to the player whose 4.5 or even 4.45, was more impressive on paper.
You have to be athletic enough to hold your own. Beyond that, high football IQ, especially at positions such as WR, QB, and DB is MUCH more important. Reaction time, discipline, precision and execution are way more important at those positions that straight-line, or even lateral speed.
Max could have been taught by Vince Lombardi and Bill Belichik and he wouldn't have been a very good player. It is pretty evident he didn't have the self discipline to be a good football player.
That's why I think it's basically an impossible question to ask / answer. The type of player he was, undoubtedly was affected by his off the field character. I can hypothesize until I'm blue in the face that he was actually a good athlete that needed better coaching and development the safety position, but that still doesn't change the fact that he couldn't keep himself focused. Now some guys can overcome that because they are that naturally gifted (see someone like Pacman Jones) and it helps when your school will basically turn a blind eye to your problems as long as you're helping them win, but Max obviously wasn't that caliber of football player and Notre Dame wasn't going to put up with his crap.
