This is a player someone suggested for the rookie polls that I did not know much about yet. Been busy but I finally got around to watching two of his games.
Here is the
draftbreakdown link to his games.
I watched him against UMass and Clemson. These games are like night and day as far as the level of defensive competition goes. Anyhow my notes:
UMass – not a good defense. Many missed tackles in this game and several of them I could not give a lot of credit to Proise for, the defenders just suck at tackling.
Proise does have a decent spin move that enabled him to get out of the pile, he does drive with his legs in traffic and he has enough speed to get to the edge if the safeties take poor angles in their pursuit. He looks a bit stiff and hesitant as runner at times to me.
He drops the ball on a jet sweep for no reason. Maybe he saw a ghost or something? There was no contact and he already had the ball secured, he just spazzes out for some reason and drops the ball. Watching in slow motion I can see the ball isn’t quite secure, still resting on the outside of his arm a bit, so he is trying to shift it into the crook of his elbow but it pops loose when he tries to adjust the balls position in his arm.
Does a decent job squaring up in pass protection in one example. The Irish were down at one point and throwing a lot. He would check for blitz and then get out in a pattern if no blitz came (usually didn’t( I did not see him targeted on an passes.
He gets some really good blocking at times, especially on the left side. The clip emphasizes the main good runs at the 5:28 mark where you see the spin move I was talking about from the backside of the play. Two defenders run into each other here and I don’t think the spin move was even necessary when the defense is blocking itself. The run to the outside on the left he shows good vision to cut outside but the blocking gives him a lot of choices.
Overall considering the competition I wasn’t too impressed with this game.
Clemson – Hoping for a better defense than UMass to give a more fair evaluation. The game starts off with the staple inside zone runs but Clemson is pushing the offensive line into the backfield and Prioise has no where to go. On their second drive ND is trying to throw a bit more, he does get a couple runs but gains nothing on them. The defense is forcing ND to throw the ball. I saw him help the RT on a double team as another example of decent pass protection.
The announcer says he has -5 yards on his first six carries. His next couple carries are not much better. He catches a screen pass but it gets snuffed out right away. Seeing some more examples of him helping the RT in pass protection.
He loses 7 yards later on in the game. The only thing really working for the ND offense is their QB running. The QB is not good. Does not see wide open WR and cannot hit the out route accurately. Throwing high and off target for the most part.
Proise does get a decent run to the left side but then fumbles the ball from a hard tackle.
He gets open on an out route to the left flat as the defender lost a step showing blitz. Makes a nice catch still brought down shortly after though.
He is still running hard and they catch Clemson in a pass defense for a change he has some room on the right side for a nice run.
He has a big catch on the right side where the route concepts cleared it for him and the defender kept his eyes in the backfield too long. There was a review of the play so they show it a few more times checking to see if he was out of bounds, he wasn’t, he does a nice job tip toeing near the sideline. The defense blew the coverage on this but good play to execute.
He has another fumble but ND recover this time. The WR and QB both fumble after this as well. He makes a nice catch on the left sideline and ND ends up scoring for the game to be 22 to 24 but they failed on the conversion.
I thought Prioise looked decent as a receiver, he catches the ball fine. He has issues with holding on to the ball. 2 fumbles in this game. He runs hard, I just don’t see any elusiveness or ability to create on his own against a superior defense. He needs blocking.