Tomorrow’s All-american: 2012’s Most Underrated Recruiting Prospects

Contributing on the field for a championship team is an impressive feat for any true freshman. There were many who contributed to Alabama’s success during the 2011 season, none of which made a more significant contribution than safety Vinnie Sunseri.

Vinnie is the son of former linebacker coach Sal Sunseri, who recently departed to become Tennessee’s defensive coordinator. The younger Sunseri was a beast on special teams this year, making return specialists wish they had just stayed home with his monstrous hits.

Vinnie was a fan favorite from day one, often recording the first tackle of the game on kickoffs and sending the crowd into a frenzy with his special teams play. He also played a crucial role on defense as the backup safety, making play after play and always being in the right place at the right time.

On a championship team stacked with top-tier recruits and overflowing with the best prospects in the country, how is it that a three-star player was the freshman of the year? The answer is clear: recruiting services and self proclaimed analysts simply got one wrong.

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Sometimes players surprise everyone and develop quickly, exceeding all expectations; but that wasn’t the case here. Vinnie was another victim of a flawed system that is used to evaluate prospects by the scouting services. There isn’t a coach on the team that was surprised at the contribution made by Vinnie this year. From the time he camped at Alabama he was expected to do big things.

Fans often look at prospects star rating and judge what kind of impact they may make, but coaches have their own evaluation process, which often doesn’t take into account star rating. Coaches value a prospect much more than scouting services do because they are better equipped to assess talent and team needs.

This year’s class has already been named No. 1 by every major scouting service, and if all the recruits hold firm to their commitment nothing should change in that regard. The 2012 recruiting class has at least ten recruits rated three stars. We here at BamaHammer are going to go over the five most underrated prospects in the class and tell you who to watch out for.

Ryan Anderson of Daphne, Alabama is a 6-foot 3-inch, 250 pound linebacker who was the most underrated player in the class for the Tide until recently. 24/7 sports finally realized what Anderson was going to bring to Tuscaloosa and gave him a fifth star, but other services haven’t done so.

Anderson’s senior year was phenomenal after moving to linebacker where he belongs, and his performance in the Alabama/Mississippi All-Star classic forced services to bump him up. Courtney Upshaw has graduated and Anderson is the heir apparent, with great size and strength at linebacker. The intensity this young man plays is unrivaled, and he has already enrolled in classes.

Darren Lake from York, Alabama is a 6-foot 4-inch, 320 pound defensive lineman. Darren was the most impressive 300-plus pound lineman to camp at Alabama last summer, and despite being relatively unknown received an offer from Saban on the spot.

Coaches were so convinced Lake was the player they wanted that he was offered without seeing his film any or being observed in a game, which is rare to say the least. He didn’t have any game film nor was he able to attend camps to receive the rating that reflected his potential. It hardly matters, because he dominated the top prospects at the Tide’s lineman camp and was by all accounts unstoppable. The natural talent Lake has doesn’t come along very often, and Alabama has hit a homerun with his addition to the 2012 class.

Adam Griffith from Calhoun, Georgia may be a three-star prospect in the eyes of recruiting services, but in terms of team need and talent he is as good as you will ever see. Kickers don’t get the respect they deserve, but there isn’t a Bama fan in the world that doesn’t understand the importance of  a great kicking game.

Griffith is the No. 1 kicker in the nation and brings a rocket launcher of a leg with him to Tuscaloosa. At 5-foot 10-inches and 175 pounds he isn’t a big kid, but he kicks like a pro already. He has a natural kicking motion that allows him to generate unbelievable power when he kicks and his accuracy is just as impressive.

Griffith has the chance to come in and take over the kicking duties from day one, which doesn’t happen at the major college level often. An astonishing 80 percent of his kickoffs go into the end zone, and 60 percent of them go out of the back of the end zone. He prefers to kick without the aid of the tee used by high school kickers, which puts him way ahead of the curve. Don’t be surprised to see him trot on the field next season, to try a long field goal or to be handling kickoffs next year.

Brandon Hill is a 6-foot 6-inch, 330 pound monster of an offensive lineman from Tennessee. Hill recently shut his recruitment down for good, dispelling rumors of him entertaining Ole Miss offers. Hill has only had one year in a football system well-equipped enough to coach him in his technique and offensive schemes, and he was integral in the state championship season as a senior. He is built in the mold of current offensive lineman D.J. Fluker and is viewed by Tide coaches as just as good a prospect. Fluker is a senior in 2012, and Hill should be able to fill his enormous shoes when he goes on to the NFL.

Hill is a huge piece of this recruiting class – literally and figuratively. He fits the offensive lineman blueprint Alabama has drawn up over the years. He is of course big, but Brandon is unusually quick for such a big guy and his strength is off the charts. I have no doubt that he will by far surpass his three-star prospect rating and follow Fluker into the NFL one day if he stays healthy.

Last but not least is quarterback Alec Morris from Allen High in Texas. Alabama pursued the top two quarterbacks in the class initially before securing a verbal commitment from Morris, a three-star rated prospect. Like other prospects, Alec attended Tide camp over the summer and impressed the coaches enough to get a scholarship offer from Alabama.

Some people see Morris as a consolation prize for not getting a commitment from the other two quarterbacks Alabama offered, but that’s far from the truth. At 6-foot 4-inches and 230 pounds, Alec already has prototypical size for a college quarterback, unlike many prospects who are expected to fill out later in their career.

Being from Texas, Alec is drawing comparisons with former Tide quarterback Greg McElroy. The biggest knock on Greg was not having the arm strength to stretch the field, and that isn’t the case with Morris at all. He has a rocket of an arm and displays good accuracy. What is most impressive is that he can move very well when it’s time to tuck the ball and get downfield. In my most recent conversation with a Tide staff member, I asked what he thinks about people saying Alec was a “system quarterback.”  He replied with a chuckle, “every great quarterback is a system quarterback.”

Over the years, great players have flown under the radar only to make a big splash at the college level, and many go on to careers in the NFL. Some are late bloomers, some are just learning the game when they get to college, and some simply haven’t been given the opportunity to showcase what they are capable of doing.

So when looking over the commitment list, remember that these young men have already been evaluated by the Tide coaches in person, and there’s something about them that the coaches want on the team. While Ryan Anderson, Darren Lake and Adam Griffith have a shot at make an immediate splash, Hill and Morris will have the benefit of learning the system from players who have one or more championship rings on their fingers.

The one thing all of these young men have in common is they all have something to prove, they lack an oversized ego that can hinder players sometimes and are all extremely talented. They didn’t earn a scholarship to Alabama to be scout team players; they have a scholarship because the coaching staff believes they can fill the shoes of the players before them. I have no doubt that they will do just that.