Observations on Galvan:
* I dispense with four dimensional analysis of guys who have actually played college football. Much more meaningful data point to see how they actually play college football. In Galvan's case, he led Northern Iowa in tackles as a redshirt freshman, was fourth in tackles for loss with 5.5, was second on the team with pass breakups with 4, had an interception, and forced a fumble. Extremely nice redshirt freshman year.
* PFF agrees, ranking him 36th of 363 FCS starting LBs nationally. He was 82nd in run defense, 196th in tackling, 269th in pass rush, and 14th in coverage (whoa....maybe don't make Tafiti and Bailey drop back so much?). To put into perspective that 36th overall ranking, PFF considered Galvan one of the three best football freshman ILBs in FCS. Outstanding.
* In high school he was a standout in football (first team all-state as a junior and second team all-state as a senior), soccer (first team all-state twice), wrestling (seventh place in 2A at 190 pounds), and track (made it to the state finals in the 4X110 shuttle hurdles, 11.2 100 as a junior). That strikes me as a very impressive all-around athlete.
* I can't say enough about what a relief it is to get a promising ILB at a position where the pipeline is in disarray. With three years of eligibility left, he joins the same class as Rose and Hudson, but we have a lot more reason to be optimistic about him than we do with those other guys. This is a nice, pipeline-enhancing get.
* As with the high school recruit I just analyzed, Bo Tate, there are serious size issues here. Galvan was listed at 202 pounds last year. Miniscule. I don't know whether our coaches have a vision for lighter ILBs or if they're just making do with what they can get but probably the latter. We are bringing in very small linebackers.
* Northern Iowa played the #137 schedule according to Sagarin, which is excellent for FCS. When PFF grades Galvan as having a superstar 80+ grade, we should keep in mind that was against competition essentially identical to what Bernadel faced at Florida International (#135 in 2022), against which Bernadel had a 68.8 grade.
Have to be cognizant about size, but this seems like a really big transfer get, on paper the biggest of Taylor's two years. Really good player at one of our worst pipeline positions. Really good chance of starting and essentially guaranteed starting in 2025.
P.S. With Galvan coming on board and rumors about Ozzie Nicholas....might Tristan Sinclair be better viewed as a player-coach, or maybe even literally a graduate assistant?
Observations on Green:
* Green played a lot as a true freshman in 2022, 213 snaps, though that's somewhat inflated by how many games and how many DBs Washington played. He was DB9 and 19th in snaps among defenders. He got the outstanding freshman award at the team banquet for that relatively heavy usage as a freshman. In terms of performance, PFF was not impressed to say the least. He was graded the 56th of 56 200+ snap CBs in the Pac-12, and massively behind #55. In fact, among 522 FBS corners in 2022 he was #521 according to PFF. Graded extremely poorly across the board. Enormous disaster. He played a bit on special teams but wasn't a starter on any teams unit.
* As a sophomore, Green's snap count dropped significantly (almost halving) and he was DB10 and 24th in snaps among defenders. In the more limited playing time his grades got better across the board, especially in run defense, but were still bad. He no longer qualified for my threshold for significant snaps (200+) but for what it's worth among CBs with 100+ snaps he was 57th of 63 Pac-12 CBs. Still awful.
* On special teams he became a key player as a sophomore, getting an enormous amount of snaps (200 on special teams alone!) thanks to starting on the kick return, kick coverage, and punt return teams and also playing a significant amount on the punt coverage team. His overall special teams grade was good, seventh best on Washington's team and fourth among 100+ snap teams guys. Among 100+ snap teams guys in the Pac-12 writ large, Green graded 17th of 165. [For context, Stanford's best non-specialist/returns special teams guy was Omari Porter at 49th] Green is a special teams stud.
* While what I've uncovered so far is not very encouraging at DB - also keep in mind DBs improve much less reliably/linearly than other positions as there is much less physical development needed - it is notable that two of the CBs who graded worse than Green were JShawn Frausto-Ramos and Jaden Slocum. On a very real level the bottom line here is beggars can't be choosers.
* On paper Green's past usage and our similarly mediocre CB and safety pipelines would seem to make it an open question where Green would play for us, but I am thinking safety. He's got safety size and, most of all, it does not seem a coincidence that he is joining up with Bob Gregory. I would imagine Gregory was involved in recruiting Green to Washington and now Gregory is our safeties (where Green will likely play) and special teams (where we know Green is a stud) coach.
* With two years of eligibility left, on paper Green seems to enter a bit of a logjam with Edwards, Wyrick, Leigber, and Porter. It would be much more impactful for pipeline health if Green were clearly better than those guys and/or had three years remaining. But he does have a redshirt available so that's theoretically possible.
* We are now going to have newcomer DBs named Javion and Jaivion.
My bottom line is Green could help us on special teams and maybe modestly improves depth, though to be honest that's not clear to me. Not sure I'd use this scholarship but Gregory certainly knows much more about defensive football than I do.
* I dispense with four dimensional analysis of guys who have actually played college football. Much more meaningful data point to see how they actually play college football. In Galvan's case, he led Northern Iowa in tackles as a redshirt freshman, was fourth in tackles for loss with 5.5, was second on the team with pass breakups with 4, had an interception, and forced a fumble. Extremely nice redshirt freshman year.
* PFF agrees, ranking him 36th of 363 FCS starting LBs nationally. He was 82nd in run defense, 196th in tackling, 269th in pass rush, and 14th in coverage (whoa....maybe don't make Tafiti and Bailey drop back so much?). To put into perspective that 36th overall ranking, PFF considered Galvan one of the three best football freshman ILBs in FCS. Outstanding.
* In high school he was a standout in football (first team all-state as a junior and second team all-state as a senior), soccer (first team all-state twice), wrestling (seventh place in 2A at 190 pounds), and track (made it to the state finals in the 4X110 shuttle hurdles, 11.2 100 as a junior). That strikes me as a very impressive all-around athlete.
* I can't say enough about what a relief it is to get a promising ILB at a position where the pipeline is in disarray. With three years of eligibility left, he joins the same class as Rose and Hudson, but we have a lot more reason to be optimistic about him than we do with those other guys. This is a nice, pipeline-enhancing get.
* As with the high school recruit I just analyzed, Bo Tate, there are serious size issues here. Galvan was listed at 202 pounds last year. Miniscule. I don't know whether our coaches have a vision for lighter ILBs or if they're just making do with what they can get but probably the latter. We are bringing in very small linebackers.
* Northern Iowa played the #137 schedule according to Sagarin, which is excellent for FCS. When PFF grades Galvan as having a superstar 80+ grade, we should keep in mind that was against competition essentially identical to what Bernadel faced at Florida International (#135 in 2022), against which Bernadel had a 68.8 grade.
Have to be cognizant about size, but this seems like a really big transfer get, on paper the biggest of Taylor's two years. Really good player at one of our worst pipeline positions. Really good chance of starting and essentially guaranteed starting in 2025.
P.S. With Galvan coming on board and rumors about Ozzie Nicholas....might Tristan Sinclair be better viewed as a player-coach, or maybe even literally a graduate assistant?
Observations on Green:
* Green played a lot as a true freshman in 2022, 213 snaps, though that's somewhat inflated by how many games and how many DBs Washington played. He was DB9 and 19th in snaps among defenders. He got the outstanding freshman award at the team banquet for that relatively heavy usage as a freshman. In terms of performance, PFF was not impressed to say the least. He was graded the 56th of 56 200+ snap CBs in the Pac-12, and massively behind #55. In fact, among 522 FBS corners in 2022 he was #521 according to PFF. Graded extremely poorly across the board. Enormous disaster. He played a bit on special teams but wasn't a starter on any teams unit.
* As a sophomore, Green's snap count dropped significantly (almost halving) and he was DB10 and 24th in snaps among defenders. In the more limited playing time his grades got better across the board, especially in run defense, but were still bad. He no longer qualified for my threshold for significant snaps (200+) but for what it's worth among CBs with 100+ snaps he was 57th of 63 Pac-12 CBs. Still awful.
* On special teams he became a key player as a sophomore, getting an enormous amount of snaps (200 on special teams alone!) thanks to starting on the kick return, kick coverage, and punt return teams and also playing a significant amount on the punt coverage team. His overall special teams grade was good, seventh best on Washington's team and fourth among 100+ snap teams guys. Among 100+ snap teams guys in the Pac-12 writ large, Green graded 17th of 165. [For context, Stanford's best non-specialist/returns special teams guy was Omari Porter at 49th] Green is a special teams stud.
* While what I've uncovered so far is not very encouraging at DB - also keep in mind DBs improve much less reliably/linearly than other positions as there is much less physical development needed - it is notable that two of the CBs who graded worse than Green were JShawn Frausto-Ramos and Jaden Slocum. On a very real level the bottom line here is beggars can't be choosers.
* On paper Green's past usage and our similarly mediocre CB and safety pipelines would seem to make it an open question where Green would play for us, but I am thinking safety. He's got safety size and, most of all, it does not seem a coincidence that he is joining up with Bob Gregory. I would imagine Gregory was involved in recruiting Green to Washington and now Gregory is our safeties (where Green will likely play) and special teams (where we know Green is a stud) coach.
* With two years of eligibility left, on paper Green seems to enter a bit of a logjam with Edwards, Wyrick, Leigber, and Porter. It would be much more impactful for pipeline health if Green were clearly better than those guys and/or had three years remaining. But he does have a redshirt available so that's theoretically possible.
* We are now going to have newcomer DBs named Javion and Jaivion.
My bottom line is Green could help us on special teams and maybe modestly improves depth, though to be honest that's not clear to me. Not sure I'd use this scholarship but Gregory certainly knows much more about defensive football than I do.