By Trevor Enerson, CycloneFanatic.com’s resident recruiting junkie(aka Yaman3)
Note from the editor: In an effort to bump up our football recruiting coverage here at CycloneFanatic.com, you’ll now be seeing blogs from Trevor on the topic. He’s proven to be very knowledgeable in the area of football recruiting and I think you’ll enjoy his insight/analysis.
STEELE JANTZ
What he is: Jantz is a 6-foot-3, 220-pound quarterback out of the City College of San Francisco. For those of you who don’t know, he was a walk on at the University of Hawaii, where he redshirted. After that year, Jantz decided to go the JUCO route. In his redshirt freshman year, he was the backup and as a sophomore, Jantz was the starter. He threw for over 3,000 yards and 23 touchdowns. In addition, Jantz ran for 601 yards and 14 touchdowns.
What he does: This kid can run and throw. Jantz seems to have an accurate arm that is pretty live. I would have like to seen a few more tough throws that required zip into a tight area, but based on his highlight tape, Jantz is very capable of picking apart the holes of a zone coverage. He can drop the ball into holes pretty well.
Strengths/Weaknesses: The one thing that deserves mention is that he didn’t have much experience at quarterback prior to this past season. This was his first full year playing quarterback at any level past junior high. Jantz was hurt as a senior, then redshirted and then was a backup. When I take that knowledge along with the success he had this year, it indicates his learning curve to this point is extremely steep. That gives me a lot of optimism for his future. Jantz has a good arm and is accurate on the run. As far as weaknesses, it seems that there could be a couple. I don’t know if it is because he was constantly under pressure with someone in his face or what, but it looks to me like Jantz doesn’t get to his left side as well as one would like. Having said that, Jantz doesn’t seem to have trouble getting the ball where it needs to be. You would also like to see some more velocity on some throws, but in the video I have seen, he didn’t need it so I can’t pick that apart right now. I would have to see some mistakes to be able to find other weaknesses. Right now I am just relying on potential problems.
What’s in store: The staff didn’t bring a JUCO quarterback to be a backup. They brought him in because they think he will compete for the starting job immediately. It is about impossible to determine how everyone will develop over the offseason but I would say he has as good of a shot as anyone to be the starter next season. If Jantz can pick up the playbook quickly, I would almost put him in as the favorite. I don’t want to hype him up too much, but he has the frame and tools to do it. It’s a matter of how quickly he picks up the offense and the development of everyone else.
He looks to me like: Sage Rosenfels. He posses the same sort of height and athleticism with an above average looking arm.
