Scouting Report: Jacob Karam

[Note by Seth C, 09/08/08 7:08 AM CDT ]  Thanks to Tye of the Kansas State blog Bring On The Cats and if any other DTN readers watch any Texas Tech recruits/commits, please feel free to post.  Great stuff.

The title of this post undoubtedly confers entirely too weighty of a title on me, as I am no scout and in fact probably not the most knowledgeable football mind in the room in which I currently sit, which is filled with dorky law students.  But, I did attend the Dayton/Friendswood game on Friday night and, in so doing, had a chance to watch Texas Tech recruit Jacob Karam in action.

To say that I came away impressed would be more than a mild understatement.  Because of massive traffic problems on the way to the stadium, I missed part of the first quarter, and we left a little early to avoid the same problem on the way out.  However, in the time I was there, Karam was 26-for-36 for 308 yards, three TDs and zero INTs.  Check out his final stats here, thanks to the Houston Chronicle.

Beyond the raw stats, which were very impressive, Karam looked confident and polished.  I caught myself wondering if Mike Leach, being the mad scientist that he is, didn't build Karam out of spare parts specifically to fit his offense.  All ridiculous daydreaming aside, Karam looks the part of the prototypical Tech quarterback.  He's a solid 6'1", 197 pounds, has great mechanics, and reads defenses well.  He was constantly making adjustments at the line of scrimmage in reaction to the Dayton defense's formation.

While Karam doesn't have the strongest arm in terms of zinging fastballs around, he is deadly accurate and his arm is certainly strong enough to get the job done.  He can stretch the field, as he showed on the first drive I saw, delivering a 42-yard touchdown strike on a perfectly thrown post pattern.  Truly, a thing of beauty.  Two drives later, he hit a wide-open receiver on a flea-flicker for a 69 yard touchdown pass.  A lot of quarterbacks merely lob the ball up on such a play, trying to ensure the catch is made.  Karam threw a perfect strike for a 69-yard touchdown.

Karam's totals would have been more impressive but for two or three drops by his receivers.  He only really "forced" one throw that I saw, when he threw downfield into double coverage.  Even on that play, he made a smart decision, throwing the ball where he knew it would be incomplete or only his receiver would catch it.  It ended up incomplete.

In contrast, Karam's counterpart for Dayton is Nebraska recruit Cody Green.  Green, who has all the athletic ability and potential in the world, was simply awful in the spotlight of this big game.  My stats (incomplete, remember) had him 12-for-31 with a couple interceptions.  If not for a 70-yard slip screen on his opening drive to University of Houston recruit A.J. Dugat, things would have been even uglier.