Terps Land Second Four Star Commit, Nathaniel Clarke

by Ben Broman on Jul 28, 2009 7:05 PM EDT in Football Recruiting Comment 2 comments

For all the panic of the past few weeks with the "recruiting crisis", it has pulled itself together extremely quickly. Maryland landed four-star offensive guard Nathaniel Clarke today, joining Titus Till as the second 2010 four star Terp. No article that's linkable, but he's now on Maryland's commit list on Rivals.

Clarke is 6'4", 284 from Archbishop Carroll in DC. He's yet to be ranked by Scout or ESPN, but Rivals - generally the most accurate for football - has his as a four star. His rank of 5.9 - which I've never understood - puts him as the highest ranked commit yet. He's also the teammate of three star DE Jeremiah Attachou, who the Terps are recruiting. The closest I could come to a scouting report was this Rivals video, which showcased Clarke at the very end of the video (he's the kid in white and green seemingly getting killed by every defensive lineman they talk about before - don't worry, he actually did a good job):

Nate Clark really made this event in many different ways. The offensive line was so absolutely overmatched against a great group of defensive lineman that when Nate Clark switched from the defensive side, where he was doing well, over to offense at basically our request to try to handle some guys like JR Ferguson, Sharrif Floyd, TJ Clemmings...he did an outstanding job. I think his future is at offensive line, I think he's a guard, I think he's got great feet. Maryland's offered him at offensive lineman. He likes to play defense, he prefers that, but based on his toughness, his stamina, and his work ethic, too - he was getting pretty angry at some of the trash-talking going on by the defensive linemen, and it inspired him and made him better and better; I think he's a guy that has that physical nature to be a very good offensive guard at the next level.

That's from Mike Farrell, and I apologize for the questionable grammar - it was a spoken interview and he had some unfinished thoughts in there. Anyway, sounds great to me. This was a huge pickup.

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fyi

Rivals.com Prospect Database
About Football Ratings

Rivals.com has assembled the top team of recruiting analysts in the nation with both national and regional experts based all throughout the country. With those strengths, players at a number of different positions will be ranked once a month from June until February.

The rankings are compiled after countless hours of film evaluation, personal observations and input from professional, college and high school coaches.

In the finished product, players are ranked a number of different ways but the most important ways are numerically by position, qualitatively by stars and a new ranking system that grades players on the expected impact they will make in college.

Players are ranked numerically on a national level at their positions. The numerical ranking at each position varies depending on the depth of the talent at the position.

Players are also ranked on their quality with a star ranking. A five-star prospect is considered to be one of the nation’s top 25-30 players, four star is a top 250-300 or so player, three-stars is a top 750 level player, two stars means the player is a mid-major prospect and one star means the player is not ranked.

The ranking system ranks prospects on a numerical scale from 6.1-4.9.

* 6.1 Franchise Player; considered one of the elite prospects in the country, generally among the nation’s top 25 players overall; deemed to have excellent pro potential; high-major prospect

* 6.0-5.8 All-American Candidate; high-major prospect; considered one of the nation’s top 300 prospects; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team

* 5.7-5.5 All-Region Selection; considered among the region’s top prospects and among the top 750 or so prospects in the country; high-to-mid-major prospect; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team

* 5.4-5.0 Division I prospect; considered a mid-major prospect; deemed to have limited pro potential but definite Division I prospect; may be more of a role player

* 4.9 Sleeper; no Rivals.com expert knew much, if anything, about this player; a prospect that only a college coach really knew about

Rivals.com is proud to present the most advanced database system ever created and the most advanced rating system around. If you have any questions about the database or rankings contact recruiting@rivals.com.

by tiimbitz4786 on Jul 28, 2009 7:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

so he's projected as a pro

pretty meaningless at this point since a big part of who becomes a good college football player, unlike other sports (like basketball) has to do with what they do after they get to campus

by tiimbitz4786 on Jul 28, 2009 7:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs