Posts: 1,065
Threads: 80
Joined: Aug 2017
Four dimensional analysis on Vaccarello:
Services: On3 industry ranking NR, 247 composite #963 (#88 LB), On3 NR, 247 #47 LB, Rivals 5.5 grade (same grade as Omar Staples, Benjamin Hudson, Ricky Miezan, Caleb Kelly, Loa Kaufusi, Gabe Reid, Jarek Lancaster, Geoff Meinken, Nick Macaluso, Clinton Snyder), ESPN NR
Offers: Stanford, Boston College, Syracuse, Maryland, Connecticut, Utah, Buffalo, Toledo, Bowling Green, Akron, Miami of Ohio
Production: As a junior against middling competition (literally the dead median strength of schedule among all Stanford recruits in the historical data set), Vaccarello self-reportedly made first team all-state and had 111 tackles, 29 tackles for loss, 13 sacks, and 4 pass breakups. As a sophomore against very bad competition (bottom 15 percent of Stanford recruits), Vaccarello self-reportedly made honorable mention all-conference and had 85 tackles, 13 tackles for loss, 9 sacks, 3 pass breakups, and a fumble recovery. The Maxpreps stats for are not very well-reported for either year (partial for sophomore year, practically useless for junior year) so I can't do the normal validation and comparisons I would want to, but the reported stats fill up the stat sheet.
Highlights: Vaccarello's Hudl page starts off poorly organized, at least for the sophomore year portion, but that ended up not frustrating me at all. The season highlights are nicely labeled, especially the junior highlights. The sophomore highlights show him exclusively as a stand-up OLB, usually coming forward to rush the passer or defend the run but occasionally staying back to fill up a passing lane or spy on somebody. Not really anything in coverage per se other than one play jumping a route to break up a pass when he was taking up one of those passing lanes. He doesn't strike me in the sophomore highlights as strong at the point of attack but he makes plays in a few different ways and was productive against a low level of competition. He really didn't play a single good team or major prospect his sophomore year so I won't analyze further.
The junior highlights still show him as a stand-up OLB but this time with more diversity and certainly more dominance. There is pass rush, run defense, more of the batted balls, and just lots of disruption generally. It's almost in man among boys territory in the volume of disruptive plays. The reason that the junior season strength of schedule was significantly better is that his team made a championship run, falling just short. The bulk of the schedule was identical in (very low) quality to the year before, so beware watching the full season highlights and think he's doing it over elevated competition in general. But the highlights are beautifully organized and labeled, not hiding anything, enabling viewers to quite easily assess which competition is good competition. In fact, the junior highlights are in essentially exact order of strength of opposition. You can basically view the first half of those highlights as good competition and the second half as bad competition. The first 4-5 minutes in particular are notable tests, as I will get into below. I was initially disappointed Vaccarello did not post an individual game highlight of the one instance of elite competition, losing to undefeated Imhotep Charter in the state championship, but his season highlights start with a minute and twenty five seconds of highlights from that game (Imhotep Charter is the black uniform with white accents and red helmet, not to be confused with another black uniform team I explain below as among the most interesting clips to watch). On offense he had a 23 yard reception that was all yards after the catch and on the game he had eight tackles, a tackle for loss, and a sack. Looking at the season highlights I located the sack, which came unmolested as left tackle incoming Indiana OL Zafir Stewart blocked inside and Vaccarello darted to take down incoming Army player (given their offense I don't know if he's a QB or RB or what) Mikal Davis. At the end of those highlights there's a play in run defense going up against Stewart in which Vaccarello acquits himself nicely. In that state championship game Vaccarello doesn't come out looking too bad on the clips for 2025 4-star RB Jabree Wallace-Coleman, who did dart past a Vaccarello arm tackle but not necessarily a positioning where one should have expected Vaccarello to make the play outside the extraordinary. The biggest home run didn't have anything to do with our guy, and the second biggest run was not our guy's fault and he ran across the field to eventually make the tackle. Vaccarello had a tackle for loss on Wallace-Coleman, so really that came out looking pretty solid. In general that minute and 25 seconds to start the junior highlights shows a lot of competitive plays against one of the top 75 teams in America. Against Pine-Richland, Vaccarello had, among other plays on the tape, a tackle for loss he claims was against incoming Wisconsin OL Ryan Cory (though Cory was pulling from the opposite side of the line and the two didn't touch each other), a sack speed rushing right past incoming Navy OL James Cardinali, a tackle for loss against Cory where this time Cory again came pulling from the other side of the line but fully plowed his shoulder into Vaccarello, who fought through it to be part of the gang tackle (this may have been my favorite play....if I had concerns from the sophomore highlights of Vaccarello banging, this play is a nice rejoinder, coupled with the run defense play against Zafir Stewart I mentioned above), multiple hurries against Cardinali, and also had a receiving touchdown. Neither Cory nor Cardinali posted highlights from the game. The playoff game against Cathedral Prep was particularly interested because it was a showdown with incoming Pitt OL Jiavani Cooley. Cooley didn't post clips from the game but Vaccarello posted plenty, including a tackle of loss of the QB coming around Cooley's side (though Cooley blocked inside so it wasn't a real matchup), a great highlight of Vaccarello doing a kind of stutter step/swim move to get on Cooley's inside and then backside chase the fleeing QB across the field until the eventual sack, three more tackles for loss against Cooley (two again being inside moves, one a hop past the slower big guy and the other a spin move, and then setting and getting around the edge on an outside run), and a pass defended batting a ball after dropping in coverage. The clips against Cooley are worth checking out - Cathedral Prep is the team in all black with a bit of orange on the helmet and Cooley is the right tackle #50. Cooley was the composite #1137 player in the country, so somewhat fringe for ACC, but this was domination.
It's hard for me not to be a sucker for big production. Being a football prospect is about playing football and this guy is really good at it, at least at the high school level. I'm really troubled by the offers and especially that he's camped and visited at so many decent programs without getting offers, and don't think we can just dismiss that. A lot of people have watched him without being convinced. But these are nice highlights. And I especially like the overriding thing that comes through - he is productive no matter who he is playing against. I came into this exercise expecting that once he played Pine-Richland, Cathedral Prep, and especially Imhotep Charter he would go relatively quiet. That is very common at all levels of football, for somebody to be least productive against the best opponents. Nope. He kind of did the same thing every game, affecting the game in pass rush and run defense and making more than a handful of tackles. I am bummed we don't have full Maxpreps stats to enable a game log but if we did I bet we might see 10+ games with a sack. This high level of production is what I always want to see in linebackers. None of these are an exact comparison but there are shades of Thomas Keiser (the last time we got a player from this league), Chase Thomas, and Clinton Snyder, and I would be thrilled to get anything approaching any of those guys. We once had defensive coaches who could get a lot out of tweeners, if that is what is suppressing the offers and recruiting service acclaim, and hopefully we can again.
