New Safety Commit – Maurice “Rabbit” Evans

[Anonymous]

Utah picks up the commitment of Blinn College S Maurice “Rabbit” Evans

Looks to be a good safety fit for the Utes next year.

[Charlie]

So hard to evaluate at this point. Most Juco guys take a year to transition to D1. Lots of offers but only 1 other P5 offer from WSU, clearly Utah’s offer is head and shoulders above any other. Ranks 85 and under are most often considered projects at this level. But he does come from a good JC program and has height. Scalley is very good at spotting talent. I would look to see what Utah can do after a year in the program in ’24 and a P4 training table gets him over 200. We still need ’24 safeties.

[2008 National Champ]

Yep. The ’24 safety room is pretty empty at the moment.

[Utah]

Do you guys remember Jake Murphy? Very good TE, and a solid year then went into the NFL draft. I don’t remember him getting drafted, he stuck with the Raiders for a few weeks then was cut and is out of football.

Now, Bishop feels a lot like Murphy. The potential is there, but a year too early. I hope Bishop isn’t on a practice squad next fall wishing he’d made more money at Utah.

[22Ute22]

Damn, so I guess OnlyU saying that our staff was going all in next year was a lie if this is the best we could do for Safety in the portal :/

[Charlie]

JC is part of HS recruiting, the portal is much more likely to produce ’24 rotational players. The incoming part of the portal has not started except for those that started in a back channel fashion. You can expect to see a safety. That and relax, no one here lies to you…

[2008 National Champ]

JC is part of portal recruiting, not HS. The only reason to take a JC at this point is you believe that they are ready to play immediately.

[Charlie]

JC recruiting generally takes place in the fall along with HS. They are limited in ability to visit during the season however. By together with HS I mean they are on the board of targets throughout the fall, unlike portal folks that are generally not known until the portal opens unless they are one of the few that quit midseason. I could be wrong but I don’t recall many that start at Utah right after transfer. Most are like Kincaid (not JC but FCS) and take some time to warm up to P5 level. In my mind JC guys have a redshirt available and often use it in transition. Grad transfers need to be ready to play immediately. I think.

[2008 National Champ]

Garret Bolles, Marquis Blair, Corrion Ballard. All were brought in to be immediate starters. So was BAM but if it hadn’t been for the extra covid year, he’d have been a washout.

Farther back would be Booker and John White. JC guys fill roster holes with proven college experience.

[Tednab]

..take a combat breath .. give it a minute.. let’s see how this plays out first

[Rick]

Scalley likes two returners a lot – Nate Ritchie and Jonathan Hall. It’s possible that Tao Johnson could move over. Remember that we’ve had two incoming freshman play well at the spot over the last few years – Bishop and Ritchie. Nate, like so many others this year, struggled to get all the way back after an injury. Of course, he was also returning from a mission. At this point, it’s depth Scalley is worried about. They believe Davis Andrews could play immediately but he wants to go on a mission this summer.

[chinngiskhaan]

wtf man… we just found out our two stud safeties were leaving. Give it some time before you dog the recruiting efforts

[22Ute22]

Yeah, that’s the point. We just lost our two best safeties, are losing two CB’s, although they weren’t very good, and we are replacing them with lowly recruited players that most likely won’t have an immediate impact for next year. We have had no good news in the last week for the 2024 season. We don’t know if Kuithe is coming back. We don’t know if we are gonna get any good TE recruits like Ryan or Conyers. We are probably losing Bills and Laumea and we don’t seem to have any good replacements for them. Sorry that I’m not exactly thrilled about this.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

Meh

[Yergensen]

Marquise Blair was JC. Doesn’t matter their rating or where they’re from, we evaluate safety talent as well as anyone. QB talent not so much, but safeties I never question.

[22Ute22]

It may seem unfair, but JC players, specially those rated at .83 as a JC player, aren’t and shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt like highly rated HS or FBS transfers. He has to show that he belongs, and I hope he proves me massively wrong.

[2008 National Champ]

Blair and Ballard were rated 94 and 92, the #3 and #7 rated JUCO’s in 2017. They weren’t projects that were turned into stars due to some innate “Scalleyness” in safety coaching and recruiting

[Tony (admin)]

I love football players with cool names, like “Rabbit” or “Money” or “Rising.”

[The Miami Ute]

How about “Kool-Aid” McKinstry or “Sauce” Gardner? Those are the ones making the rounds now.

[2008 National Champ]

reminds me of the Key & Peele sketches on football names. Even they admitted that they would never have come up with a name like D’Brickashaw

[Author]

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