Dynasty Scouts Player Spotlight: Leonte Carroo

My favorite part of developmental dynasty leagues is hitching my wagon to undervalued or little known players in the off-season and, hopefully watching them find success and gain value as the college football season progresses. Leonte Carroo, consider your wagon hitched.

Carroo first caught my eye in Rutgers’ opening game of the 2013 season, a shootout with Fresno State. Carroo had five catches for 135 yards in that game with three touchdowns, two of which came in the fourth quarter. A dominant performance to say the least, and it wasn’t simply in the box score; it was the way he went about it.

After that game, I kept close tabs on Carroo’s bipolar season. Carroo ended up with nine touchdowns, accounting for a ridiculous 32% of his catches. He had four multi-score games and averaged a solid 17.1 yards per reception. That was the good. The bad? Carroo only had 28 catches in the pathetic Rutgers’ pass offense, and also missed four games, including the final three games to end the year, with a head injury. Carroo also had five games with fewer than 22 receiving yards. While it was a roller coaster of a season, I was highly impressed with how Carroo fought through his team’s terrible situation, and still put up some amazingly efficient stats.

As with most of the small sample size players I mentioned in my previous article, it’s sometimes tough to find any bits of video to use as examples. I watched a few of his games, but obviously that doesn’t give you guys a visual. Someone was kind enough to throw together a nice little highlight show of Carroo’s top plays of 2013, let’s check out a few of the best:

:21 mark

While Carroo was mainly a deep threat last year, this play really impressed me. He not only turns and makes a nice hands catch, he wastes no movement as he plunges into two defenders and uses his strength to gain an extra five yards, or so. Obviously it’s not always smart to look for contact, but It appears Carroo is pretty aware that he can move the pile. Notice how both defenders make contact with him at the 28-yard line, one bounces off and he drags the other for about four extra yards. These are the type of traits that translate to the NFL, and what makes players like Anquan Boldin, Brandon Marshall and Demaryius Thomas so successful. Obviously I’m not putting Carroo in the same ballpark as those names, but there’s potential.

1:19 mark

BEAUTIFUL!

Two things stand out on this play. First, it’s pretty clear that #11 has no chance of staying with Carroo, regardless of what route he ran. Secondly, that is a beautiful catch that is both technically sound and efficient. He not only caught it well, but it appeared smooth and natural for him as there was no fighting himself to remain technically sound like you see with a lot of college wide receivers.

1:38 mark

This is an NFL style catch, and one that will make him a lot of money if he can bring this ability to the next level. For once, a defender has good coverage, following perfectly to where the route and the ball are leading Carroo. Unfortunately for the defender, Carroo uses one of his best traits, which is tracking the deep ball, to find the trajectory of the ball and adjust and time his jump perfectly so that he has a huge advantage. Even considering that, #7 gets a hand in Carroo’s face. With a hand in his face and the defenders body pushing against him, Carroo makes a beautiful hands catch, going up strong, and hauling it in for a touchdown.

While I noted my favorite plays, there were a few other plays where it appears defenders simply can’t stay with him, especially on deep balls. I know Carroo did track in high school and while I’m not exactly sure what his speed is (I’d guess in the mid to high 4.4s) his size/speed/ball skills combination is that of a prospect that’s usually much more highly regarded.

Listed at 6’1” 200, Carroo reminds me of a combination of players with similar heights/weights.

• Hakeem Nicks
• Justin Blackmon
• James Jones
• Jerricho Cotchery

This list doesn’t look all that impressive in terms of results, but as prospects, that’s very high praise.

If things go according to plan and Rutgers uses Carroo as their top wide receiver in 2014, I think you’re looking at a mid-second, or even a late first round pick. Carroo is a guy that mostly goes undrafted in developmental drafts, and is someone you can grab with your last pick after you’ve already grabbed all the other, higher hit rate players you wanted. Have your cake and eat it too, people.