Another Top-10 Center Has FSU in Top 5: Scouting Report
Florida State football already has a commitment from a top-10 2021 center, in Jake Slaughter. But as I discussed last week, after receiving an offer he'd been waiting on from one of the Seminoles' chief rivals, that commitment appears a bit more tenuous of late. But now another top-10 center prospect is high on the 'Noles: Bryson Estes.
Slaughter and Estes, both three-star prospects, essentially are ranked the same, with the former holding a lead (currently) of just four ten-thousandths of a point. Estes (6'3, 291) was able to get to the FSU campus on March 12, just before it shut down, and Florida State offered him a couple months later, in early May. And now the Seminoles are in his Final 5 (and likely the favorite to win his services):
FSU definitely holds a geographic advantage here, as campus is just about four hours from Estes' hometown of McDonough, Georgia, south of Atlanta, where he attends Eagles Landing Christian Academy. But keep an eye on Penn State, which was the first to offer him, back in June of 2019, and has had him up to Happy Valley a few times.
Estes' highlights show him playing right tackle, but you'd prefer more length at those spots, so at 6'3 he really does fit better as a center prospect-- still, you like to see that versatility. With any recruit moving to center though, you want to see how he handles the intellectual challenge of making the calls along the OL. He gets around the line well when asked to move laterally, runs pretty smoothly for a guy his size, and is violent at the point of attack. There's a lot to like here.
