Recruiting on the South Plains | CB Darren Dotson

We've already covered the commitment of fellow teammate S/CB Stormy Butler, and now we're onto CB Darren Dotson. This is a bit interesting, and this one thing alone assures me that I might never understand recruiting, is that Dotson did not play for the College of Sequoias last year, but he is on their roster this year.

Dotson didn't play football the year before that as he was at Dean College. Now, we're going on two years without playing football and Dotson has a handful of offers from various colleges, while his teammate Butler, had one other offer besides Texas Tech, actually played last year and has good film and seems to me to make a pretty good prospect. Dotson hasn't played football in two years from what I can tell and has a full list of offers. That doesn't make any sense and this is why I cannot fully understand recruiting.

As the LAJ story will detail, Dotson did not have the grades to receive an offer coming out of high school, went to a Massachusetts junior college, Dean College in 2010, sat out in 2011 in transferring to the College of Sequoias and will play this next year. Don't get me wrong, both Dotson and Butler have really nice measurables, and maybe teams already knew that Dotson was a Division I player, but maybe Dotson was always on the radar of colleges, but because of his grade issues, it wasn't worth a coach or college's time until that actually happened.

Stats

Again, Dotson didn't play last year and I can't find any statistics for Dean College.

More after the jump.

The Player Speaks

LAJ's Don Williams spoke with Dotson and as stated with the profile on Butler, Dotson seems very impressed that Texas Tech secondary coach John Lovett has worked out the College of Sequoias secondary twice and has a good relationship with Lovett:

“One thing I was really impressed about is he came to see us here,” Doston said. “So I thought, ‘Dang, he’s really interested in us.’ That really got me interested. We’ve got a chance to go in and play right away. I love it. Not a lot of people get that chance, so I pulled the trigger on that.”

Scouting Report

I had linked to the YouTube video from Butler, Dotson and Steve Nelson (Georgia commit) with Butler's profile and why not do it again. Dotson certainly looks the part and he is still working on his footwork, but considering he hasn't played in a couple of years, this isn't a surprise. Then I ran across this 1:08 movie of Dotson highlights, presumably from high school. You read that right, over an hour of highlight film. The video isn't the best quality, but Dotson is #12 and he is an active and physical presence. He really is a pretty darned good athlete. Dotson looks a little awkward to me in coverage, but that sort of thing will happen with time. There are times where he's lined up at cornerback and then at safety. When he does play safety, he is not afraid to support the run.

Again, from the LAJ article, here is Dotson's secondary coach:

“Darren’s got four different press techniques, and he’s a very good cover corner,” Zepeda said. “He’s a 4.5 runner, so he’s got some solid speed.

Darren, welcome to Texas Tech and Git Your Guns Up!