Prospect Evaluation: Notre Dame Prospect Laquon Treadwell

Feb. 1, 2012; South Bend, IN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly speaks at a press conference for national signing day at the Guglielmnio Athletics Complex. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-US PRESSWIRE

Treadwell is still undecided about his future as to where he will play college football. He is ranked 23rd overall in the nation according to Rivals.com and the number 1 ranked wide receiver in the country. He is considering, Ole Miss, Michigan, Michigan State, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, and Notre Dame. In no particular order. However, Notre Dame is considered to be on the outside looking in. He did see the Irish play the Hurricanes at Soldier Field on Saturday.

Strengths

At 6’3’’ 198 pounds is a good size for a college wide receiver. He has put on some weight from his junior season (about 13 pounds), which is good since he should hover around 210 depending on how hard the guy works. Look at Michael Floyd at Notre Dame he was 6’3’’ 225 pounds and all muscle. A receiver this big is a scary thing to deal with on defense.  Has very good ball skills, can go up and get the ball at the highest point especially in the red zone. Always uses his hands to catch the football and doesn’t let the ball hit his shoulder pads. His best attribute in my opinion are his skills after the catch is made. There were many times Treadwell would catch a screen, make some moves and many yards later is in the end zone. He combines jukes, stiff arms and pure speed to beat defenders after the catch. Out of these his cutting/juking ability are his go to moves, also his best moves. It looks like that Treadwell is playing games with these defenders and they never stand a chance.

Weaknesses

After watching film I found some concerning, but fixable flaws in his technique. When Treadwell is in his starting stance, he doesn’t usually have the correct foot back. At the wide receiver position you always want to push off your back foot in your stance to start. This keeps the receiver from taking wasted steps. Treadwell consistently takes unneeded steps in his start. There are points where he rocks back and forth in his stance and pushes off his front foot and has no start speed at all. Also, his route running skills are subpar. He doesn’t make clean breaks on slants, posts, outs, ins, etc. Instead he is rounding his routes like a semi-circle, when the cut should be cutting them like a 90 degree angle. I don’t understand it, because his cutting ability is very good he should be able to make this routes look almost perfect. It could be coaching, but it also could be that he can blow past these defenders without doing the starting stance and route correctly. This is an easy fix for coaches, and I am sure that Treadwell will work on these things before college.

Overall a very good recruit that seems to be slipping away from Notre Dame. With a pretty solid wide receiver class already coming in I think that it comes down to a numbers with Treadwell. Especially with all the young talent Notre Dame has at receiver right now (Brown, Daniels, etc.). It looks like he will wait to commit at the end of the season or on national signing day. Fixing the flaws in his technique will make this guy an ‘Elite’ wide receiver and with that could be a 3 or 4 year starter at the college level.