Golden Bear Preview: Trent Ramsey
Who's up for some Pancakes?
Round two of our preview series about Cal football’s signing class brings us towards the offensive line, a heavy unknown heading into this season. This years class of linemen are pretty powerful and the first one I’m going to take a look at is Trent Ramsey.
The Bio and Measurements:
6 feet 5 inches
285 pounds
Carrollwood Day High School in Tampa, FL
What does Ramsey bring to the table? Also an interesting player comparison….
*links will bring you to the video itself, you’ll just have to scroll to the times to see greatness
Offensive linemen are admittedly a very difficult group to preview because a lot of film is centered around power more so than technique. A lot of the Bears from this class fit the same mold including Trent Ramsey who I will be previewing today. Trent Ramsey had a down to the wire recruitment, choosing the Cal Bears over Mississippi State and Virginia, each who have put their own linemen into the NFL, and in this case has a proverbial 1st round pick developed (Charles Cross MSU). Ramsey plays a smashmouth style of football, kind of like Quenton Nelson, where the block isn’t finished until the play ends whether it is a 1 yard run or a 80 yard run with a defensive end down in the ground because of a Ramsey pancake.
Look at the start of his mid season highlight tape, and see how ends up like a pulling left tackle, carrying the defensive end about 15 yards down the field before pancaking him into the ground. He possess a ton of power at the point of attack and finishes everything with maximum effort. One could argue he is like the tackle version of Mckade Mettauer, so aggressive and so feared to the point where you wonder if power is all you need. Right Tackle is a wide open position at the moment so it remains to be seen if Ramsey will have a fighting chance to start in his first year on campus despite him playing the majority of his snaps at Left Tackle in high school.
What can Ramsey improve on?
If there is one thing Ramsey will need to learn, it’s that you can’t solely rely on your power at the D1 level and beyond. Look at the :44 mark here, that’s an easy illegal hands to the face penalty that would get caught by every referee aside from a rouge Pac 12 crew. Using his power is a blessing and a curse, because in some cases competition folds and in other cases you have to subtly rely on technique when it doesn’t work. Ramsey is raw in this respect but as with everything else in position technique, it can be fixed and altered. Cal definitely needs to be better in this respect as they build depth with a new era of offensive linemen, something that Angus McClure will need to come to grips with as these guys step on campus. We may have a Ramsey house of pancakes under construction but the building certainly needs to maintain its foundation as he gets his Cal career going.
Midseason Hudl tape: Â http://www.hudl.com/v/2G6M7g
Best of luck to Trent as he starts his Cal career!