Daniel Jeremiah Interview

If we are looking at conference-only college football this fall, the team I feel the most for is App State. I mean, putting how much GFS make off the pay games aside, they were looking at being a top 25 team in the preseason this year.

They had road dates at Wake Forest and Wisconsin. And speaking of the Mountaineers, where the home of App State football and the Piedmont Triad, our signal reaches the Mountain and Boone, we're now being joined by a former Mountaineer quarterback who we know as NFL Network's lead draft analyst and the host of the Move the Sticks podcast, along with a former Tar Heel and Bucky Brooks. It's Daniel Jeremiah with us here on SportsUp Triad. And Daniel, before we take a look at the 2021 draft class, I've heard you break down so many quarterbacks over the years, but I've never heard your expert analysis on late 90s App State QB Daniel Jeremiah. What might that have sounded like, that evaluation?

It's a cover-your-eyes evaluation. It's a little bit undersized, skinny, good athleticism, good toughness. The character checks out mostly, but the lack of arm strength and just overall physicality is a major concern. And decision-making can be spotty at times.

So he's undraftable. You maybe bring him to camp, but he's the first we can camp guy, and that's it. I know you've watched Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, and Trey Lance. You even told us, you mentioned on your podcast, that Lance right now in the three games that you watched of him might even look better than what you've seen in Lawrence and Fields. But how much of the guys have you watched now, and how many other quarterbacks have you looked at for 2021?

Those are still the big three that I've done thus far. So I've been going through my first look series, which is I try and take 20 high-profile players and knock those out. So those are the first 20 guys that I watch. I think I just had my 11th or 12th that posted today, which was Nadia Harris, the running back from Alabama. So once I get to that series of those kind of top 20-ish type players, then I'll start going position by position and doing a little deeper dive. Normally at this time, I try and get about 50 guys done before the start of the fall football season, but shoot, we don't know if we're going to get one.

So I might just be watching this 2019 tape for all these players when it's all said and done. With Trevor, I'm thinking about last year, and obviously he hadn't lost a game until the national title game against LSU. But against Ohio State and against LSU, those are the first two times he's throwing under 50 percent of his balls, I believe, as well. And now we learned that Justin Thomas, he's going to be out this season with a weird situation at Clemson with the disorder that he has.

T. Higgins, he was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the second round. So you're looking at a pretty average wide receiver group for Clemson's standards. How much do you think we'd learn about Trevor without having those two NFL-quality weapons available to him, again, granted, or assuming there's going to be some sort of a season this year?

Yeah, fingers crossed that we get a season. The one thing I would say about Clemson is, you know, you lose Justin Ross, you lose T. Higgins, but they've got this kid, I think it's Joseph Angada, who was a freshman last year who's really athletic. And they have T. Martin's son, who's I think coming back, I think he has another year left, is kind of a slot receiver who's coming off of an injury. So you always know they're going to have another wave of guys. You know, going back to Sammy Watkins, it seems like every time Clemson loses a couple of receivers, we go, okay, well, there's no way they can replace him with the good of players that they had.

And they somehow just continue to restock and reload. So I think there'll be fine talent around him. But my thing with Lawrence is I just want to see him be more accurate, no matter who you're throwing the ball to. I thought some of the accuracy stuff, just the ball placement, was not at the level I hoped it would be at when I studied him. And that's why I kind of gave Trey Lance a little bit of an edge in that department, just throwing with anticipation and throwing with ball placement accuracy.

So that needs to clean up on his end. Obviously, the size, the athleticism, the arm strength, all that stuff is off the charts. And you hear great things about him, work ethic-wise and intelligence, toughness, all that stuff. So I just want to see him be a little more pinpoint.

And that necessarily won't be dependent on who's around him. What are the next few quarterbacks you're interested in keeping an eye on? Kyle Trask, he's a guy I think, similar to Joe Burrow last year, really take a jump when you see a lot of the talent that's around him on Florida returning. Jamie Newman, I covered pretty much all his games at Wake Forest last year.

He's going to Georgia now to replace Jake Fromm. Granted, you're trying to keep an eye on all position groups, but keeping it with quarterback, who are the next few you're interested to dive deep into? Well, I think you hit it on Trask.

The other one, I was not just in doing other players. You know, you kind of see some of the other guys. I was not all that fired up about Sam Ellinger, but you know, you see his name thrown around a lot. So I'll take a look at him from Texas. And then, you know, Newman is an interesting one. I was shocked that the receiver didn't come out last year.

Sage Surratt, right? Yes, I watched him and actually wrote him up under the assumption he was coming out. He decided to go back. So that surprised me a little bit. But, you know, Newman is a good athlete who can move around. I think the other JT Daniels from USC ended up transferring there as well.

That's right. To Georgia as well. So that'll be an interesting little battle between those guys.

But yeah, those would probably be the ones. I think you look at Florida and Texas are probably the next two on my list, the guys I'm looking forward to digging into. Daniel Jeremiah is with us, host of the Move the Sticks podcast with Bucky Brooks. He's on Twitter at Move the Sticks. I want to talk wide receivers because I'm a big wide receiver nerd. I'm a voter for the Belitnikov Award.

And I voted C.D. Lamb to win the award last year. He was my favorite wide receiver in college football. Jamar Chase ends up winning. Before we focus on the 2021 guys, guys who are going to make an impact this year, you see these videos route running of Jerry Jeudy.

Granted, there's not anybody really giving safety help out there or anything of that sort. But you got Jerry Jeudy, you got C.D. Lamb. And of course, Ruggs was taken by the Raiders. Which of those three do you look at as most likely to make an immediate impact this year? Well, I think that all of them will have their role and will perform well as rookies. I think they're going to be in teams and know how to position them and do what they do best.

I just I thought C.D. Lamb was the best of the bunch. And I think when you look at him fitting into that offense, Mike McCarthy system he brought over from Green Bay and having Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, I think he's going to have an opportunity to get a lot of one on one coverage. And he's shown what he can do in that scenario. So I think he's going to have a big year. They're going to throw it a bunch. You know, Jerry Jeudy, I think he's a perfect complement to Courtland Sutton with what they can do with him.

I think you'll see them lined up together. I think Jeudy will play a lot in the slot and have a chance to be a high volume catch guy in there. And then with Ruggs, you know, Ruggs impact won't necessarily be seen in his stats. I don't think he'll catch a ton of balls, but you're going to see him, you know, with the ball in his hand, some big plays, you know, fly sweeps and creativity they can do with him. But more than anything else is going to benefit the run game because with him and Waller at tight end, you're going to have a lot of speed that can really stretch the field. You're going to pull those safeties out of there and Josh Jacobs is going to run into fewer crowded boxes or I should say more less crowded boxes than he has in the past. Last year they were running into loaded fronts all year long.

That won't happen with Ruggs out there. I'm not sure if you had a chance to look at Boogie Basham from Wake Forest on the D-line, but he's looking at being a first or a second round pick. You mentioned Sage Surratt. When you see Surratt, do you see first round grade type of guy potentially? Well, I looked at him last year and I graded him.

I gave him a second round grade. So I make sure to see more of him. Hopefully again, we get a season and we get a chance to evaluate more of him, but man, he had some big games. One of the first games I watched, I want to say he had 10 or 12 catches and you know, it was, it was just a ridiculous amount of production that he put up and I love the size that he brings.

So you've got the size, you've got the physicality. To me, he was, I had him, you know, rated higher than a guy like Chase Claypool, but Claypool ran really fast, ended up going to the Steelers, I believe in the second round. So that's kind of where I had him, what I thought of him last year at that time. A couple other things to get to with Daniel Jeremiah from the Mood the Sticks podcast, NFL Network draft analyst. Carolina Panthers, they're bringing in Matt Rule to be the head coach. Joe Brady is the offensive coordinator after being the passing game coordinator at LSU last year. I'm just interested, what fascinates you about how Rule might run it and Joe Brady might coordinate this offense translating from the college game to the NFL? Well, I'm curious to see if we see as much empty formation as we saw with Joe Burrow, with Joe Brady last year at LSU.

I think it was over 80% of the snaps, they were empty. So five out in the route, and then just have your quarterback make a quick decision, get the ball out of your hands quickly. I don't feel great about their offensive line. I know they brought up Russell Okun to try and help there. But there's still a lot of question marks up front.

So can they afford to do that? Can they get that many guys out in the route and keep Teddy Bridgewater upright? That, that to me is my curiosity with it. You know, they're going to have a million different ways to get Christian McCaffrey the ball. So but to me, it's you know, how many you're going to see tight ends out there, they're going to keep them in, they're going to get them out. That to me is what I'm fascinated to see what this offense looks like compared to what we saw at LSU last year. I'm interested, what were you hearing about Brady's impact on the wide receivers you were evaluating from LSU last year? Because, I mean, I heard from Saints reporters who had a chance to know him and people inside that building, that him and Michael Thomas were very close. Michael Thomas cites Brady for a big part of the reason he had success underneath Sean Payton as an offensive assistant before leaving the LSU. And Teddy Bridgewater said that he took less money, probably less years to go to Carolina just to reunite with this guy. What were you hearing about the wide receivers impact that Brady had? Because Carolina, of course, has a slew of them that could take a jump this year. Yeah, well, you hear good things.

But to me, it's not what you hear, it's what you see. And just seeing what those LSU wide receivers did last year, I mean, we saw with Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, the rest of that group, was off the charts. And when you study them, they're clean, they're crisp, they are physical, they don't go out of bounds, which I always love.

I know some people like these guys to preserve themselves. I think it shows a little bit of their competitiveness and their toughness when they fight for yards. And that's what they did in that group. And I think he's going to have an opportunity to do some good things with this group. There is a lot of speed. When you have D.J. Moore, Robbie Anderson and Curtis Samuel, that is a lot of speed you can throw on the field. So I'm fascinated to see how those guys continue to grow and develop. I think you're going to need somebody kind of to emerge down in the red zone would be my only concern when I look at this group, is which one of these guys can end up being a big target and a winner down there in the enclosed space in the red zone.

That would be my one question of the group. I want to finish where we started, App State football. How excited are you for your former teammate at App, Sean Clark, leading this program now?

Yeah, I'm stoked. I mean, Sean, he is App State. He's everything that's great about that place.

Having come through the program, you quickly realize that that place, the foundation is toughness and discipline. And it's one of the reasons why it's had such a great winning tradition. Sean was there as a player. He's obviously been there as a coach and had a lot of success. And now to see him be the head of the program, it makes me proud to see my old left tackle out there on the sideline. He's a heavy spitter, though.

I got to give him some grief on that. You're the head coach now. You're not the O-line guy.

You're not allowed to spit as much, but he's going to be great. And I can promise you, I can say this because I'm not a coach on the staff and I don't play there, so it's not trash talking. But I can promise you that Wisconsin, there's some people in Badgerland that are grateful they're not going to play that football game. Maybe even Wake Forest as well.

Did he ever spit on you? I don't even think of Wake in that regard. I think of Wisconsin like a powerhouse. We were 2-0 against Wake Forest when I was there.

I don't know that's necessarily a big win anymore for the App State program. Justin Sternab was a draft pick in this draft, and he was a frequent listener of this show. And I know there's a lot of other Wake fans and players listening to this.

Maybe even Saeed Surratt is motivated by what you're saying right now, as Wake reported this week. I got to know, though, did Sean Clark ever spit on you? Not that I know of.

Not that I know of. He was very kind to the quarterbacks. I don't know that we were always kind to him. Maybe I owe him one there.

But I do. I don't want to ruffle any feathers with Wake Forest. I mean, they've had Kim Duncan. They used to have a good basketball team. There's some endearing things about that place. Very well done. Very cordial, very diplomatic, Daniel Jeremiah. It's good to have you on in the Triad.

Of course, we carry App State football around here, and you know how big it is down here. I hope we can catch up somewhere down the line. Thanks for doing this. I look forward to it. So everybody said hello out there. There you go. That is Daniel Jeremiah on Twitter, at Move the Sticks. Move the Sticks podcast with former Tar Heel, Bucky Brooks.