Jimmy Bell joining the football team
- Thread starter DesotoCountyDawg
- Start date
.Jimmy Bell to take a shot at football as reported by Maroon and White Daily's @PaulJones. Bell is on the spring roster.
Or a good way to get hurt. It's not like high school playing multiple sports. The time off the field to be good at P5 football in off season and the time on the court in the off season to be good at basketball are two different animals and no way you can juggle both. Too different.
He’s out of eligibility for basketball and has one year of football eligibility left so it’s not like he’s sacrificing one over the other now.
Antonio Gates never played football in college and had a hell of a career in the NFL as a TE.
*****I’m not saying Bell is on the level of Gates.******
I like it. I could see him at OT. He could easily gain 30 lbs between now and August.
6’9, 320? We’ll figure something out.
6’9, 320? We’ll figure something out.
Left Tackle? Now if we could Cam Matthews as an edge rusher that would be awesome
Very rare to have a guy who is that athletic. He might end up being really good. I believe we had a basketball player about 10 years or so play one season as a Line Backer. I think he started. I can't remember time frame or name.
Rico Gathers at Baylor- declared for the NFL draft after finishing his 4 years of basketball, was drafted in the 6th round, and stayed in the league for a few years.
Mark Viral at Baylor- tried to latch on in the NFL and is back to playing pro basketball at some level internationally.
Just tossing out a couple of examples that I know of in the last decade.
I'm pretty sure Bell Jr has a good idea of his potential future on the hardwood, so now he is seeing what future he may have on the gridiron. He can't go back in time and start playing college football as an 18yo, so this is what's available to him.
Criticizing his decision on the basis of he won't realize his potential in either sport this way is odd.
That's Ontario Harper's son, right?
Yea, in the limited time I saw him, Bell did not strike me as the type of athlete that could go play TE. But if you're 6'9-6'10 and 290-300lbs, maybe you don't have to be super athletic. You just have to be able to block and be a big target.
RT seems like it'd be very much a possibility. He's got long arms, which should help. While it didn't look like he had the lightest feet on the basketball floor, I assume he'd be relatively agile compared to a lot of (most?) college OTs?
Not sure if you ever get tall enough where it's actually a hindrance to play OL. A quick google shows that OTs in teh NFL are actually pretty tightly grouped by height. 6'5 to 6'7 seems to be the sweet spot although there are several that are 6'8 and 6'9. Wouldn't think a few inches would be meaningful at that point and I'm guessing it's more about that being far enough on the right tail of height distribution that there are just so few people with the combination of that kind of height and athleticism to play, and at that height, you're going to have more with the athleticism go to basketball. But that's just a guess.
ETA: Michael Gholar was a freak athlete. The fact that he couldn't make it as a TE actually surprised me just because he could jump through the roof and did have the athleticism to high point the ball. Granted he was probably skinny for blocking. Not sure if he didn't make it because he couldn't catch or if his athleticism didn't stand out that much on the football field. As far as I remember, the only thing we used him for was FG block.
He can gain 30 lbs between now and Thursday.
It was Alex Karras who said it. Sistrunk was in the Marines, which didn't hone his football skills, but certainly kept him in shape.
He might could be a full back in goal line situations or block field goals. His body say offensive tackle, but learning how to block sec edges on an island at OT is very very difficult. It takes most years of technique practice. I have my doubts he could make an impact. We could trot him out there for coin tosses or let him step off the bus first for intimidation factor.
I still remember back in like '95 or '96, Louisiana Tech had a left tackle that was 6'11" and 365 lb. It only stuck with me all these years because at the same time, our starting then-future NBA center was 6'11" 265 lb. That LT was a site to behold, but he was S-L-O-W.
Ha! That was like Thanksgiving break, right? Dude slapped on the weight of a Beagle dog over Thanksgiving break when the team played in some holiday tournament and he wasnt allowed to travel.
...or am I totally misremembering things?
More like 20 years ago. I think Gohler played on the football team Sherrill’s last season in 2003 after finishing up his basketball eligibility.
That was pretty close to what I remember. I think Stansbury gave a quote when talking about the challenges of not having Renardo with the team because of the NCAA issues and he talked about being on a road trip (can't remember if it was Thanksgiving or possibly one of the summer trips abroad?) and he talked about Renardo gaining something like 15 lbs in the week nobody was there to hold him accountable.
That's about right. He packed on the pounds right before he got in a fight in the stands in Hawaii...
After he finished his football stint, I played against Gohler in intramural softball. I hit what I thought was a fly ball to left; Gohler reached up and snagged it at shortstop.
I want Cam as a TE or WR. Dude would be impossible to guard down field.
Bell might could turn into an offensive tackle. Demar Dotson came out for football at southern miss after his senior year of basketball. He had never played football before. He was 6’9” 280 at the time. They didn’t know quite what to do with him. They put him at defensive tackle where he played sparingly if that. One particular scout from the bucs envisioned him as a left tackle. He was the only scout who got him a camp invite. Not only did Dotson make the team, but he went on to start for the bucs for 10 years at right tackle (Winston was left handed), and because the leagues highest paid right tackle.
Strange. Not one mention of Alabama Mr basketball De’Runnya Wilson
He did this last year at WV before he hit the portal.
Quit playing after junior year in HS when he transferred to prep school without football.
Can't teach his size and he's very athletic for a guy that big playing football. Be interesting.
Can't remember the game, but Jackie put in an onside kick play for Gohler. He lined up near the sideline for the kickoff and the kicker (prolly JMM) chipped it 20-25 yards in the air right at the sideline... Gohler was running full speed, jumped up with what must have been 87" vertical, snagged it, and never broke stride. Unfortunately you can't advance a recovered onside kick, so it went back to wear he caught it.
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