Listeners of The Official, our recruiting podcast here at Campus2Canton, know that our recruiting team is in the process of setting our initial top 100 for the 2027 class. Although data profiles are incomplete, a player’s junior season is often a good indicator of the type of skill set that they possess. After watching highlights, full games, and factoring in athletic measurables, here are a few players I’m lower on than the recruiting services.
WILL MENCL
At the end of the day, tools drive quarterback development. They aren’t everything, but if players aren’t hitting necessary thresholds, they better have elite mental and pocket presence. We’ve measured a 52 MPH max throwing velocity for Mencl, which is around the 20th percentile in our database. 52 MPH isn’t a complete career-ender, but it does fall just short of the range we like to see in incoming freshmen. Doug Williams and Rich Gannon are the only notable names in our data set with an arm that poor, and both were drafted before the internet was widely available. Famously noodle-armed Kellen Moore falls within this range as well.
The lack of arm strength shows up on his deep ball, and when he’s not able to hit the back of his drop and get the ball out. His high school has done a good job masking his deficiencies by running a quick-hitting passing game with many three-step drops and very basic passing concepts. When asked to throw deep, Mencl is neither accurate nor able to push the ball without abandoning his mechanics.
But the biggest problem with Mencl isn’t the lack of tools. It is the fact that he completely falls apart under pressure. Likely partially due to his lack of arm strength, Mencl’s accuracy dipped considerably when under duress. His windup gets much longer, and he’s not able to effectively alter his release point or arm slot without a significant drop in velocity.
Mencl is mobile, which should at least raise his floor collegiately, but we’ve seen plenty of semi-mobile quarterbacks struggle with more athletic defenders once they reach the NFL or even against premier opponents in college. He’s also more of a “scramble-to-throw” player, which doesn’t add a ton of fantasy value. Notably, it seemed that Mencl struggled a bit with physicality from the games that I was able to watch, including a bad fumble on a fairly typical hit in the state championship game vs Basha. Those things don’t show up on his highlights, for obvious reasons, but the full games tell a different story.
I’m interested to see where Mencl ranks at the end of this cycle. Rivals currently has him as their top quarterback, but both ESPN (QB12) and 247 (QB7) are cooler on him. If he can perform better under pressure as a senior, that would make me reconsider. As of today, his ceiling feels closer to Cade Klubnik than that of a truly elite prospect. Mencl does not currently have a draftable grade from me.
DAVID GABRIEL GEORGES
Like Mencl, Georges has fun highlights, but the full game tape is much less impressive. Georges is an explosive, straight-line athlete who plays with a ton of physicality, and he’s been insanely productive. As a junior, he averaged over 10 yards per carry and finished with 25 TDs, including a 435-yard, 7 TD performance in the state semifinals. He has a strong lower half, and defenders struggle to tackle him, even when hitting him low.
Georges’ biggest problem is his vision. He struggles to identify lanes between the tackles and can’t always maintain momentum through early contact in the backfield, despite his size. Georges is at his best when he is able to build up speed and identify cutback lanes on outside zone concepts, where he doesn’t need to break his feet down and accelerate. He’s also slightly stiff, which makes his lateral movement skills clunky and somewhat ineffective. This shows up behind the line of scrimmage and in the open field, where he struggles to win 1v1 if he can’t outrun his opponent. In these situations, he relies heavily on his strength, which may not work at his current listed weight of 205 pounds.
Although there is very little receiving work on his tape, many high schools refuse to use their running backs in the passing game, so I am not currently holding this against him.
When I watch junior-year tape, I tend to nitpick because a truly elite prospect should show growth between his junior and senior seasons. Maybe my opinion of Georges will soften with another strong year, especially if he shows growth from an elusiveness or receiving standpoint. Right now, he profiles as a strong college option with NFL shortcomings and is a mid-three-star on my grading scale.
OSANI GAYLES
Gayles is the toughest eval of this group, and one that could completely change after his senior year. Such is life when trying to watch IMG Academy. IMG had at least three FBS-quality receivers, including his higher-rated classmate Eric McFarland. Constant rotation has suppressed the entire group’s snap shares and statistics and also makes it difficult to follow which players are on the field at any given time while watching full games.
Players with Gayles’ combination of size and skill set also make for difficult projections because they’re often caught between multiple positions or roles. Can Gayles deal with physicality well enough to function as a flanker, or will he be limited to the slot? Will he develop enough as a route runner to separate consistently in the short or intermediate areas of the field, or is he purely a serious threat?
Our Prospect Athletic Comparison Tool shows Kevin Coleman Jr. as one of Gayles’ top comps, and after watching a few IMG games, the comparison feels apt. Both are slightly undersized boundary players who love to get vertical, but may not have the juice to do so consistently beyond college. Coleman was fairly successful in his collegiate career, but ultimately underperformed his WR6 composite ranking. Unless Gayles improves his physicality and expands his route tree, I foresee a similarly disappointing fate. Gayles has a low three-star grade entering his senior season, which would have ranked him as WR43 last cycle.
