UCF Commitment Profile: Wide Receiver Tyler Griffin
Tyler Griffin, WR, 6’4 ½”, 200-pounds, Brooklet (Ga.) Southeast Bulloch
Rankings Scale:
5.0 - National Top 25
4.5 - National Top 50
4.0 - National Top 100
3.5 - National Top 250
3.0 - National Top 500
2.5 - National Top 1000
Inside The Knights Grade for Tyler Griffin: 3.5 (Top 250 Player)
Upside Grade: 4.5
Offers: UCF, Coastal Carolina, Colorado, East Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech, Nebraska, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Tulane, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, and Western Kentucky.
Recruited by: G.J. Kinne and Darrell Wyatt.
Recruiting Rankings:
247: 3-star, No. 43 Athlete, and No. 41 in Georgia.
ESPN: 3-Star, No. 239 in Region, No. 61 in Georgia, and No. 38 Athlete.
Rivals: 3-Star, Unranked Nationally, No. 80 in Georgia.
Composite: 3-Star, No. 648 Overall, No. 54 Athlete, and No. 64 in Georgia.
Strengths: Length, open-field speed, natural hands, determination, and a penchant for making plays through contact.
Areas to improve: Explosiveness off the line of scrimmage and use of hands to defeat press coverage.
Prospect Analysis
The upside for Griffin will be extremely high. Despite playing in a remote area of Georgia, do not allow the prospect rankings fool you. This is a national recruit.
If Griffin played high school football in Atlanta, Houston, Washington, D.C., Orlando or Charlotte, he would likely be ranked much higher. His junior film, however, does not lie. His skills display a prospect deserving of a much higher ranking than the other scouting services, and that’s why Inside The Knights ranked Griffin as a top 250 player nationally. His skills earned him that ranking.
A long and rangy wide receiver that enjoys contact, his film consistently displayed the ability to make catches during contested passes. Further, Griffin’s ability to create positive yardage after the catch will enable him to be more impactful than most wide receivers.
Griffin’s determination after contact might be his biggest attribute. This young man ‘boxes out’ defensive backs much like he boxes out a wing forward on the basketball court, also a place of comfort for Griffin. That penchant for contact allows him to score touchdowns in a crowd of defenders, or dunk a basketball on a defender’s head. As for his physical stature, it’s certainly a major factor for his development.
Blessed with excellent height and arm length, Griffin will be able to reach the football when most wide receivers simply cannot. He’s not only big and long, but he has natural hands to catch the football away from his body. Additionally, Griffin possesses strong hands as well. As for his ability to create space, he shows good speed now, but there’s room to improve.
Griffin’s long and loping strides eat up ground quickly. At first glance from his film, one may be surprised at how fast he truly is. That’s common when watching a long-legged athlete like Griffin, and there’s a good opportunity to improve his speed in more than one way.
While his open-field speed is good, Griffin needs to be more explosive off the line of scrimmage to create immediate separation and change how defenders go about attacking him. That’s something he will gain once he reaches UCF’s strength and conditioning program, and it could provide Griffin with the final piece to his physical arsenal.
Like with his explosiveness, Griffin has room to improve technique. Again, this is a high school player that’s played two sports throughout his prep career. After he concentrates his efforts solely towards football, there’s truly very little this young man will not be able to accomplish in a UCF uniform.
After gaining more speed off the line of scrimmage, cornerbacks and safeties will need to consistently back off from the line of scrimmage to defend him, or risk being beat deep. That fact will allow Griffin more flexibility with his moves during routes, and that’s when Griffin’s after-the-catch determination to churn out yards can be a true asset. He’s also quite adept at making defenders miss in space, something that is rare for such a tall football player. One last area will help grow Griffin’s game tremendously.
Defeating press coverage is the biggest difference for even NFL wide receivers. If a wide receiver consistently defeats press coverage, that leaves few options for a defensive coordinator beyond double teaming that wide receiver. Griffin utilized strength and his long arms to beat defensive backs to this point of his career, but he needs refinement to beat truly talented cornerbacks. It’s all a part of the maturation process for a talented wide receiver like Griffin, and that will come with repetitions.