Austin Beier is an offensive line recruit for the Gophers from Toledo St Johns.. He will be coming to the Gophers to study engineering so he is a very bright kid... He is about 6-5 and listed at 280.. He looks bigger than I remember him from last year.. It looks like he gained good weight.. It was Senior Night at St Johns FIRST home game of the year which is kind of unusual...Austin's dad looks as big as Austin if not bigger, standing next to him.
Austin is a person who I think is perfect for a zone blocking team.. He blocks well on the run and St Johns pulls him at the left guard spot quite a bit... If you get video of St Johns. he is number 74. He gets to the 2nd level very consistently... He DOES NOT reach or get out of balance very easily, even on the run. He knows when and where to engage his blocks.. He is a MASTER at the HS level of using opponents' momentum against them to move them out of the way...St Johns ran a lot of inside zone stuff and you could tell that was Beier's strength. He did well on the stretch plays, also...
His footwork is very good for a HS player.. He walls off very well and he doesnt waste a lot of steps to get to where he needs to be on any given play. He keeps his feet apart the same distance on each play so his balance is consistent and gets his butt underneath him well on pass protection. His weakness is that he isn't going to always win battles with guys who are brute bull rusher types. He can maintain his feet but he sometimes struggles at the point of attack with strong DTs on the other side, which happened against Mansfield on the power rushing plays. He struggled slightly with pad level with the shorter stout DTs of Mansfield when going 'hat to hat'.
I think it will benefit Austin to take a redshirt year at Minnesota but he is a guy that I can see be a starter early on, once he takes the field.. He has enough length and frame to put on some more weight... He is also a disrupting force as a DE but I like him better as a O-lineman.
Austin is a person who I think is perfect for a zone blocking team.. He blocks well on the run and St Johns pulls him at the left guard spot quite a bit... If you get video of St Johns. he is number 74. He gets to the 2nd level very consistently... He DOES NOT reach or get out of balance very easily, even on the run. He knows when and where to engage his blocks.. He is a MASTER at the HS level of using opponents' momentum against them to move them out of the way...St Johns ran a lot of inside zone stuff and you could tell that was Beier's strength. He did well on the stretch plays, also...
His footwork is very good for a HS player.. He walls off very well and he doesnt waste a lot of steps to get to where he needs to be on any given play. He keeps his feet apart the same distance on each play so his balance is consistent and gets his butt underneath him well on pass protection. His weakness is that he isn't going to always win battles with guys who are brute bull rusher types. He can maintain his feet but he sometimes struggles at the point of attack with strong DTs on the other side, which happened against Mansfield on the power rushing plays. He struggled slightly with pad level with the shorter stout DTs of Mansfield when going 'hat to hat'.
I think it will benefit Austin to take a redshirt year at Minnesota but he is a guy that I can see be a starter early on, once he takes the field.. He has enough length and frame to put on some more weight... He is also a disrupting force as a DE but I like him better as a O-lineman.
