TMI 2010: B.J. Butler

The Georgia Bulldogs picked up a commitment on Saturday from Kissimmee, FL (Osceola H.S.) player B.J. Butler. If you haven't heard of B.J. Butler you're not alone. A lot of Georgia fans had not heard of Butler either until his teammate Marc Deas committed to Georgia last weekend at G-Day and word got out that Butler had also received a scholarship offer from Mark Richt and crew.

It was not his first offer, however. Not even close. Butler previously received scholarship offers from Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. Anytime you beat out the likes of Saban, Meyer and Beamer  for a player, especially this early in the recruiting process, you can safely assume you have something there. While Butler grew up a Florida fan, he wanted to leave the state for college and decided to follow his teammate Deas to Athens. This should make for a good pre-Cocktail Party human interest piece in a couple of years.

With apologies to commentor wwcmrd?, who recently noted the absurdity of referring to an incoming college football player as an "athlete"***, Butler is what is sometimes termed a "jumbo athlete". Other examples from recent Georgia football history include Charles Johnson, Charles Grant and Boss Bailey, as well as Marquise Elmore. Butler, like Bailey and Grant before him, plays quarterback in high school, as you can see from the Youtube video below:

Rivals lists Butler as an outside linebacker. I'm not buying that. If he's 6'3 and 240 pounds now, it's difficult to imagine that Butler won't wind up either at defensive end or even defensive tackle. I think it's clear from the video that Butler has good, quick feet and long arms, two highly prized qualities in a defensive end. I note however that he's playing quarterback and defensive tackle in the video. He's not a fulltime defensive end, so his development at the position may not be very far along. I'd characterize Butler as a bigger, raw Cornelius Washington.

What else do you need to know about Butler? Well, in the past he's sported an impressive neck beard. And his high school team is the Kowboys. Not the Cowboys, but the Kowboys. Like Georgia's other three early commits for 2010, the recruiting services don't have Butler rated at this point. Don't be worried about that. It will change, and we're better off with Mark Richt and Rodney Garner doing the evaluations than the folks at Rivals and Scout.

Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!

***They're all athletes, of course. Except for Rennie Curran, who's actually a football playing superalien of some sort, and Terrence Cody, who's a geological feature in shoulder pads.