Where Should Blake Fisher Be Ranked?
Evaluating and ranking prospects is certainly not an exact science, and no one has mastered it if we’re being honest. One of the interesting aspects of following and covering recruiting is when there is a player who has a significant gap in how he is viewed from one service to another.
There are several in Notre Dame’s 2021 class that fit that bill, and Avon (Ind.) High School offensive tackle Blake Fisher is one of those prospects.
Rivals ranks Fisher as the nation’s 20th best player in the entire country; he’s a borderline five-star in their view. 247Sports has him barely inside the Top 100 and ESPN has him barely outside of the Top 100.
The reality is all three services view him as a very good football player, but only one of the three views him as a truly elite caliber prospect, and that is Rivals.
So where should Fisher truly be ranked, and does it really matter?
THE TOOLS
I’m of the view that to be a top of the class prospect, someone that can earn five stars, or even rank in the Top 50 nationally, a prospect needs an elite tool or two, at least. So when discussing Fisher and where he should be ranked things need to start there, a look at his best tools.
From a size standpoint Fisher grades out as elite. He’s 6-6 and listed between 330 and 340 pounds, but he’s not a big fat kid that needs to lose 30-40 pounds to function. I’ve been able to see Fisher up close, and he’s just naturally big in a similar way that former Irish star lineman Quenton Nelson was big.
Big head, broad shoulders, thick arms, huge hands, thick torso, thick core area, thick lower body, huge feet. Everything about Fisher is just big, and this is important because linemen who weigh 330-340 pounds who aren’t big are usually that big because they are carrying a ton of bad weight, which often makes them less agile, but that is not the case with Fisher.
Like the vast, vast majority of 16-17 year old offensive linemen he must continue reshaping his body as he matures, but Fisher is always going to be big. This is clearly an elite trait for the Avon star.
On top of being big, Fisher has tremendous length, and these two things do not always go hand-in-hand. Fisher has extremely long arms, which allows him to win on the edge even if he’s not in ideal position, or if his base isn’t what it needs to be, or if he doesn’t quite get out of his stance with the necessary timing or technique.
It’s an eraser trait that widens his margin for error, and that length combined with an incredibly powerful natural punch gives Fisher another elite trait.
Fisher isn’t an elite athlete overall, but his athleticism plays quite well for his size and age. His quickness at the snap is a bit inconsistent (see below), but when his base is good he can shoot off the ball with impressive quickness for a player his size. Fisher isn’t heavy footed at all, which is a major positive because being heavy footed is a concern I have anytime I see a player is over 300 pounds.
There is snap after snap of Fisher working on the balls of his feet and avoiding digging in on his heels unless he's trying to anchor, which is something that is harder to do for a stiffer athlete or someone that lacks ideal lower leg flexibility, which is a trait that can cause bigger athletes to be heavy footed or slower.
IS THERE ROOM FOR CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT?
I’d be concerned about Fisher’s prospects as a top player if he was close to being a finished product, and part of the reason Notre Dame fans should be so excited about him is that even though he’s already one of the top blockers in the nation, there is a lot of room for him to continue improving.
I will get into greater detail when I do a full film analysis of his game, but Fisher needs work on how he uses his hands, consistency with his base and keeping his pads lower at the snap, especially in the run game. His consistency off the line from a timing, quickness and pad level standpoint can all be improved.
All of this, however, is fixable and there’s nothing about his frame, athletic skills or intelligence that will keep him from making huge strides as a technical player, and that's a scary thought when you consider how dominant he already is.
Athletically, there is plenty of room for Fisher to keep developing and improving. If I was his offensive line coach the biggest thing I would work on with Fisher is making sure he’s working every day on his flexibility. Stretching is a big key, especially when it comes to his core and lower body. Bigger athletes are more susceptible to tightening up in those areas as they get older if they aren’t adamant about staying loose on a regular basis.
I’d also advise Fisher to find some sort of training or routine that allows him to focus on core strength, agility and overall body flexibility. If he can avoid tightening up as he gets older he’ll only get better and better as a player because he’ll get even quicker off the snap and develop even more explosiveness as he gets stronger.
WHERE HE SHOULD BE RANKED
When I put my grades together and crunch the numbers the data tells me the same thing my eyes and gut tell me when I break down the film, and that is Blake Fisher is a clear Top 50 caliber prospect with the tools to be an elite (five-star) player at some point in the future.
The technical parts of his game that I mentioned above are what keep him from being a five-star player at the moment, but he’s not that far away. He’s solidly in the Top 50 category for me, and he’s closer to being the 20th best player than the 50th or 70th best player in my view, and certainly he grades out much higher than being ranked 82nd or 103rd.
While having him in that range is no disrespect and shows that all the services think highly of him, I believe that’s too low of a bar for Fisher. He has rare traits and he’s already a dominant high school player, and he showed that on film and during the Notre Dame Lineman Camp when he dominated at least one defender who is ranked at least 20 spots higher than Fisher on the 247Sports and ESPN top lists.
WHY IT MATTERS
I’ve said this before, but rankings and stars do not matter when it comes to how a player will pan out. That sentence can send some into a bout of rage of misunderstanding and shallow thinking, but it’s true.
Prescribing a star rating or a ranking doesn’t mean a player at any position is going to automatically be good, or not be good. While stars and rankings bring up interesting discussions about probabilities, at the end of the day it’s about a players talent, work ethic, development and making the right school choice (fit).
But rankings do matter in the world of recruiting. When Notre Dame is trying to sell having Fisher in the class it certainly works better if he’s ranked 20th in the country or 30th in the country than if he’s outside the Top 100. If Fisher was properly ranked by ESPN and 247Sports it would certainly impact the program’s overall class ranking, which again aids in their “pitch” to other recruits.
Believe it or not, momentum is a real thing in the world of recruiting.
Top players usually want to play with other top players. So from that standpoint, Fisher being properly ranked does matter.
But when he shows up at Notre Dame and puts on a gold helmet it won’t mean a thing. He’ll have to earn everything he gets and his success will be largely determined by the work he’s willing to put in. If he's the young man and player I think he is, Fighting Irish fans are going to enjoy watching Fisher in the blue and gold.
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