Getting to Know our New Recruits: QB Dennis Andrews

Hopefully you read GTNate's fine, Pulitzer-winning work of literature a couple of days ago introducing us as the official FTRS directors for recruiting content. If not, well, you're missing out. Long story short, we've been tasked with researching and keeping up with Georgia Tech's recruiting efforts, likely surrounding football mostly or entirely. The first act of business I'd like to work on here is a report on a QB we've recruited out of Godby High School in Tallahassee, FL named Dennis Andrews.

To begin with, Andrews has a 3.5 GPA in high school and picked us over Vanderbilt, among others. He's listed as an athlete (for those not familiar with recruiting terms, that means he's got skills for more than just one specific position), though we were one of very few schools to recruit him as a QB. A number of other schools recruited him to play wide receiver or defensive back, but according to Andrews, quarterback is "my natural position, I've been playing it since 6th grade." He's listed on Rivals as being 5'11", 190lbs, and in my opinion this guy is going to be a great fit in our system. (more on that after the jump)

I watched a couple YouTube videos of his Sophomore and Junior year highlights (posted below), and a few things became very apparent:

1) He ran a spread, read option-based offense in high school. For the non-football nerds out there, the offense he ran looked exactly like Auburn's and Florida's. Across those 2 videos I saw him take maybe 5-6 snaps from under center, with the rest being from the shotgun. How comfortable will he feel under center on the Flats? That's yet to be seen. But the good news is that he's clearly had experience learning to read defenses in run-based offenses.

2) This kid is more elusive than the Sasquatch. Good grief, I feel like I watched him break triple-digits worth of tackles in 10 minutes of film. I didn't see him truck anyone at all, but it was truly unnecessary with him juking everybody out of their shoes and turning 5-yard losses into 15-yard TD runs. I can't tell you whether he's facing SEC-caliber talent or second-string-in-mom's-backyard-caliber talent, but he was still very impressive to watch. Kid has a lot going for him on the ground.

3) He didn't get a whole lot of protection from his offensive line, so a lot of times he had to improvise and scramble on passing plays. It's very good seeing him able to use his feet to extend plays, and after doing so I saw him make some really good throws (look at the second half of the junior year highlights for those). We'll see if that translates to the Flats, but I definitely think he has the capability of being an impressive passer. He really reminded me of Synjyn Days, who is a very gifted runner that could use a little more poise in the pocket.

OVERALL: It'll be interesting seeing how he pans out here. I think he has a TON of potential, after seeing some really good stuff from him in the videos, but at the same time, how many recruits have we seen that were highly, highly touted, only to crumble in the spotlights, getting arrested for drugs and being hurt and generally getting the fanbase to despise you? I think he brings a lot to our program, and I look forward to having him wearing the White and Gold.