Over the weekend I watched the junior year highlights of one Javion Dawkins from Waco Connally. Dawkins may have gone through a substantial growth spurt in the past year or two; his Hudl and Maxpreps pages still list his size at 6'1" 170, but a look at some photos from last season or his Hudl highlights shows he's quite a bit bigger than that. Heck, he might be 170 pounds in his legs alone.
As a sophomore in 2015 he played inside linebacker and was a backup running back, though he got more carries at the end of that year. After getting just 12 carries through his team's first 7 games he rushed 37 times for 223 yards and 5 TDs in his team's last three games that season. As a junior in 2016 he played primarily at nose tackle in Connally's 3-man front, with some snaps at defensive end as well. He was credited with 60 tackles, 16 tackles for loss, 8 sacks, 1 forced fumble and 1 fumble recovery.
Connally's capsule preview in the new Texas Football magazine lists Dawkins as 6 feet and 230 pounds, which appears far more accurate than 6'1" 170. He looks like a pretty strong player, though raw and in need of refinement in some areas, and with his size he obviously won't play on a college defensive line. But might he have the foot speed to survive and even thrive after a move back to his former inside linebacker spot?
Even before completely finishing his junior highlights I wondered how they compared with the junior year work of our own all-conference LB Josiah Tauaefa, who played defensive end at Lake Dallas before converting to inside linebacker at UTSA.
After watching them I think there are some similarities there, and I believe in terms of size at the same age they're pretty close, with Tauaefa probably being an inch or so taller, but it's tough to make a real solid comparison with the two playing at different high school competition levels (5A for Tauaefa, 4A DII for Dawkins) and with Tauaefa spending more of his high school days battling offensive tackles than having to deal with the centers and guards Dawkins spent his junior season lining up over. Tauaefa wasn't a DE with a really quick first step but he moved well in space and could bend and strike with power at nearby ball-carriers. And of course he later showed had the foot speed to make plays at LB without getting too exposed in pass coverage. Those are qualities I don't see Dawkins grading quite as high on right now, but I like him as a player and think he'll be a player to watch this fall in central Texas.
As a sophomore in 2015 he played inside linebacker and was a backup running back, though he got more carries at the end of that year. After getting just 12 carries through his team's first 7 games he rushed 37 times for 223 yards and 5 TDs in his team's last three games that season. As a junior in 2016 he played primarily at nose tackle in Connally's 3-man front, with some snaps at defensive end as well. He was credited with 60 tackles, 16 tackles for loss, 8 sacks, 1 forced fumble and 1 fumble recovery.
Connally's capsule preview in the new Texas Football magazine lists Dawkins as 6 feet and 230 pounds, which appears far more accurate than 6'1" 170. He looks like a pretty strong player, though raw and in need of refinement in some areas, and with his size he obviously won't play on a college defensive line. But might he have the foot speed to survive and even thrive after a move back to his former inside linebacker spot?
Even before completely finishing his junior highlights I wondered how they compared with the junior year work of our own all-conference LB Josiah Tauaefa, who played defensive end at Lake Dallas before converting to inside linebacker at UTSA.
After watching them I think there are some similarities there, and I believe in terms of size at the same age they're pretty close, with Tauaefa probably being an inch or so taller, but it's tough to make a real solid comparison with the two playing at different high school competition levels (5A for Tauaefa, 4A DII for Dawkins) and with Tauaefa spending more of his high school days battling offensive tackles than having to deal with the centers and guards Dawkins spent his junior season lining up over. Tauaefa wasn't a DE with a really quick first step but he moved well in space and could bend and strike with power at nearby ball-carriers. And of course he later showed had the foot speed to make plays at LB without getting too exposed in pass coverage. Those are qualities I don't see Dawkins grading quite as high on right now, but I like him as a player and think he'll be a player to watch this fall in central Texas.
