Film Don't Lie: C'Bo Flemister
In terms of his name, he’s a 5 star recruit. In terms of his game, he’s not quite there, although I think his ranking is a classic case of being underrated because the media and programs were late to discover him.
There’s always a reason why that happens and it’s possible that the lack of previous success for C’Bo Flemister’s high school program was behind it. A year ago at this time Flemister had zero offers despite rushing for over 2,000 yards as a junior. Not only that, but his film was impressive. Based on that, it doesn’t make much sense to me why it took so long for programs to take notice.
Regardless of why he went under the radar, the former Georgia Tech commit is a really good prospect. The more film I have watched of him, the more I like him as a football player. I bumped up his ranking after re-watching his junior and senior film.
Notre Dame needed a second back in this class and I think they landed an absolute steal out of Georgia in Flemister.
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 192
Projected Position: Running Back
ISD Grade: 90 (4 star)
National Average Grade: 84.8 (3 star)
What he does best:
Flemister has so many traits that help him excel running the football. It all starts with great feet and tremendous vision. His ability to make cuts and anticipate when to make them is outstanding. Then it’s all about the burst when he sticks his foot in the ground and accelerates through the hole. That’s exactly what he does with this run where he sees a crease and lets loose.
Very few backs have the potential to be great unless they have the feet, vision, and burst. Flemister has that and more. His lateral explosiveness is particularly impressive. He makes a big time jump cut to avoid the first tackler and then makes a series of cuts to turn what should have been a short gain into a big play.
That’s pretty phenomenal for a back to be able to do that.
One other trait that he possesses is toughness. He is not someone who goes down easily and will fight for every yard he can get. He might be listed at 192 pounds, but he runs like a much bigger back. Part of that is sheer determination on his part. It would have been so easy to step out of bounds here. Instead he dips his shoulder, breaks a tackles, and is thinking about scoring.
The other part is that he is really good at making himself a smaller target. It might sound weird to say he runs like a bigger back and then saying he makes himself small, but I mean that in the sense that he drops his pad level low. He doesn’t allow tacklers to have a good shot at him because of the way he runs. Think of it like Ricky Henderson crouching in his batting stance to shrink the strike zone in baseball. That’s the equivalent of what Flemister does with his body when tacklers approach.
And while he does that really well, he can also bring out the truck stick.
He’s a slippery player in the open field too. If this sounds like I’m gushing about his ability, I am. He flashes some dynamic ability as a runner and shows some big time traits on film.
What he needs to improve:
He needs to add weight to be an every down back at the next level. He definitely put on some muscle heading into his senior season, but those tackles aren’t as easy to break at under 200 at the college level. He may need some time in the weight room to be the same style of back he was in high school.
He has good speed, but isn’t what I would call a burner. He was timed in the low 4.6 range before last season and that looks about right. I think he can get faster once he tightens up his running mechanics. I also feel they should be careful with messing with it too much because the unique way he runs is an asset.
Flemister isn’t used as a receiver much. He does flash some ball skills on defense and I think he could be a dangerous player in the screen game if he develops that part of his game.
Some of the feet and burst I see with him isn’t that different than what we see with current Irish running back Dexter Williams. His Achilles heel has been his struggles in pass blocking and if Flemister can’t do that well, he’ll struggle to see the field.
That’s something I haven’t seen him do. Most likely because he isn’t asked to do it much or at all. He certainly seems like he would be more than willing to step up to a blitzer if asked to based on the way he runs. He appears to have the mentality to be good at it.
What’s his ceiling?
A couple of weeks ago two recruiting sites had him ranked as 2 star. That might make sense to some given his offer list, but it shows that schools like Notre Dame and Tennessee that offered late did a great job of doing their own evaluation to recognize that he is a really good football player on their own.
They didn’t care about the offer list or the ranking. They watched the film and C’Bo can ball.
I see a player who I feel can be an inside-outside threat as a runner that is as strong running in traffic in short yardage as he is when breaking into the open field. Former South Florida star and current Indianapolis Colt Marlon Mack is someone that comes to mind when thinking about Flemister’s potential.
He’s someone that was not highly ranked and became a star at USF. The way Mack looked like he was going through moguls in the snow with his cuts is similar to what I see with Flemister. We’ll see if he’ll have the same kind of explosive big play ability that Mack did.
That may be considered too high of a ceiling in the eyes of some, but that’s the kind of player I think he has the potential to become. That’s also why I think this is a serious steal for the Irish this late in the process. He’s probably the biggest sleeper in their 2018 class.