Avery Horn

Avery Horn - 5’11” – 195 lbs. – 4.50 – Hanford, CA

Analysis: Avery Horn is an interesting recruit. I’m intrigued to see what the coaching staff is going to do with him. Is he going to play RB? DB? KR? Widely viewed as a plan B recruit, he was actually offered fairly early, when recruits like John Clay, Robert Hughes, and Dan Herron were still on the board. The question is, was he offered because the staff already knew those guys weren’t coming, or is he legitimately good enough to be our plan A at running back for 2007? I’m inclined to say that the staff believes him to be a plan A recruit, because of the timing of his offer, but I’m not sure if I agree with them. Horn can be summed up in one word, FAST. The kid has some serious straight line speed. His videos remind me a bit of a faster Mike Hart, but without the shiftiness. Almost every clip in his videos are the same, great acceleration through the initial hole, then once he gets into the secondary he cuts outside and tries to beat the defensive backs down the sideline. It almost seems like he relies on his speed a bit to much, and that could hurt him at the college level where the defense is a lot faster than high school. If he can develop a few nice jukes and moves, I think he could do pretty well in the new zone-blocking system, which relies heavily on running backs finding the holes and creating. His clips don’t show him making to much contact, so we’ll have wait and see how he stands up to the pounding. One place I’m very excited about Horn’s potential contribution is on kick returns, while he might not have the shiftiness for returning punts, if he can get a kick and ten yards to build up steam, he’ll be tough to catch. Horn could surprise, similar to Hart his freshman year, but at first glance, I feel that he’ll end up primarily contributing in the return game, and likely get passed up for carries if we can land a top flight RB target in the class of ’08.