Recruiting on the South Plains: 2015 TE/WR Donta Thompson Player Profile

Texas Tech's 17th commit of the 2015 class is a huge commit, 6'6" of a commit, in Ennis tight end / wide receiver Donta Thompson. Thompson helped Ennis to a state title, in fact, he made the winning catch (when you go to his Hudl profile, click on the Cedar Park highlights and it is the second catch) to win state for Ennis. With former commit Carlos Strickland choosing Cal this week, getting Thompson to commit makes Strickland's new college choice a bit easier to accept. Thompson and Strickland are incredibly similar players, mainly because of their height. Both around 6'5" or 6'6" and in the 200 pound range. They are both long and lean and can go over the top of receivers. Perhaps the biggest difference between them is that Strickland had a better junior year and maybe got on the recruiting map a bit quicker because he plays for a more high profile program, while Thompson had a relatively quiet junior year, but Thompson had a significantly better senior season.

Player Profile

RECEIVER
DONTA THOMPSON	WIDE RECEIVER / TIGHT END
HT/WT: 6-6/210 FORTY: 4.60 HIGH SCHOOL: Ennis (Ennis, TX) VIDEO: Hudl RECRUITING SERVICES: Rivals 5.4 | Scout | ESPN 73 | 24/7 Sports 83 CUMULATIVE RANKING: 0.8295 VTM PROFILE DATE: January 29, 2015 OFFERS: Arkansas State, Colorado, Illinois, Miami (OH), New Mexico, Purdue, Texas State, Texas-San Antonio, Texas Tech, UTEP

Scouting Report and Walsh Analysis

The Walsh Analysis is utilizing how famed coach Bill Walsh identified and scouted players for the 1997 draft.

Thompson caught 77 passes for 1,453 yards and 16 touchdowns in his senior campaign, so he was really productive as a reciver. In fact, most of the film has Thompson lined up as the x-receiver or z-receiver and that makes some sense for a high school team but I think Thompson would have a tough time getting off of blocks as an outside receiver. I've listed Thompson as a receiver or tight end because you just don't know how that body will fill out. I think Thompson is going to be a tweener more than anything else, not quite big enough to be a tight end and maybe not fast enough to be an outside receiver. Thompson lines up all over the place in his film, but he's mostly at the X-receiver and Z-receiver spots, the outside. Because most of the film is with Thompson playing receiver, we'll stick with the receiver analysis.

Just to go through my grades, I think Thompson has better than average agility. Most of his catches aren't necessarily acrobatic, although there are plenty where he has to lay out to make a catch and a few times that he has to go up and get the ball, but I think that's due to his height more than anything else, not agility. I do very much like his body control, his hands and his ability to focus on the ball. It seems like Thompson always has a defender on him, which means that he has to have terrific hands, the ability to focus and enough body control to keep the defender away from the ball. Considering that Thompson is pretty much a giant going up against high school competition, I think that his strength is really his biggest area of concern, at 210, that's not a ton of weight for a 6'6" frame. Plenty of room to grow, but for comparison purposes, Quan Shorts is 195 or 200 and 5 inches shorter, so strength will need to be Thompson's main area to work on as he gets into college.

I've also knocked his full stride speed to being average. I'm sure he's fast, but 4.6 seems a bit generous. Again, the fact that he always has a defender on him (or quite a bit of the time) means that he doesn't have real breakaway speed. Another comparison would be that Jonathan Giles says that he has 4.55 speed and I think that Giles is significantly faster. This isn't that big of a deal to me, Thompson not being a burner because he has other traits that don't show up here, like 6'6" height and there is no amount of training where a receiver can magically make that happen without just being born that way.

As to the knock on durability, this is both a blessing and a curse. Thompson has had 1 good year, his senior year, where he had 77 catches for nearly 1,500 yards and 16 touchdowns. His junior year he only had 19 catches overall. One of the reasons why players don't get on the recruiting map as quickly as other is because they have one break-out year and college coaches have to figure out how that one good year translates. So, I think that we just don't know if Thompson is durable, although he obviously made it through his senior year with flying colors.

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