'09 MO RB Montee Ball (Wisconsin Verbal)

[MikeIsGood]

BTW, new article on Montee from STLToday. Actually lists him as 6'2, which could be an exaggeration, but at the same time he could have grown from his previously-reported 5'11 frame.

STLtoday - Ball nears record

[panther10]

Originally Posted by MikeIsGood

BTW, new article on Montee from STLToday. Actually lists him as 6'2, which could be an exaggeration, but at the same time he could have grown from his previously-reported 5'11 frame.

STLtoday - Ball nears record

Is he a candidate for Mr. Football?

[Bernini]

Originally Posted by MikeIsGood

Haven't posted in awhile, but wanted to say that that was a nice catch. I asked about him and FL WR Bailey today in the Rivals 250 chat, and while they made it sound like Bailey would be a 4-star in the future, they gave no response about Montee, so I was wondering if that was any indication that they didn't want to let the cat out of the bag early. Apparently, it was.

We all knew how good he was, but it's nonetheless nice for him to get the recognition. Maybe he'll break the 250 by the time he wraps his season up.

Good to see you Mike. I don't know if Montee is my absolute favorite commit of this class (probably Gilbert, Budmayr, or Groy), unlike most it seems, but he is a virtual can't miss because of his hard work and desire. P.J. Hill is a serviceable back in the Badger's offense on those traits alone, but Montee has actual skills, i.e.: speed, quickness, and vision.

BTW, 4 4-star commits already for the 2009 cycle; that ties our team record since Rivals' inception.

Panther, yes he's a candidate for POY in Mizzou, but if it comes it will be more of a career than season award. Ron Dayne won the Heisman as a senior, but that wasn't his best season. He'll have to overcome some stiff competition though like Scheelhaase, Wingo, and Dalton. No idea what type of season they're having but all are highly rated prospects in their own right.

[MikeIsGood]

Thanks, Bern. I still lurk a little bit.

As far as I know, Wingo is having a good year but not comparable to the one that Ball is having. It seems that he did almost half of his damage in one game (over 400 of his 1,001 rushing yards, and 7 of his 15 touchdowns) rather than being consistent, and his team has had 2 poor losses (one to a sub-500 team, one a total blowout against DeSmet) in which he contributed very little - less than 100 rushing yards combined on 27 carries. Again to my knowledge, the conferences they play in have been fairly comparable this year. Montee's team (Timberland) ranks 3rd in the St. Louis area's large schools ranking while Wingo's doesn't place. But the thing to keep in mind here is that Montee has produced every game at a high level, and he has done a large majority of his work in the first half of games because Timberland has been blowing people out of the water. I would love to see them take on East St Louis, a squad consisting of Kraig Appleton, Terry Hawthorne, '10 prospect Courtney Moulton, and some other boarderline D1 talent.

To make a long story short, I don't think Wingo will be competition for Ball come POTY voting, especially when considering careers, as said.

I'm not sure about Scheelhasse or Dalton this season. One of them is the incumbant POTY, but I don't remember which.

[TheFresher]

Originally Posted by MikeIsGood

Thanks, Bern. I still lurk a little bit.

As far as I know, Wingo is having a good year but not comparable to the one that Ball is having. It seems that he did almost half of his damage in one game (over 400 of his 1,001 rushing yards, and 7 of his 15 touchdowns) rather than being consistent, and his team has had 2 poor losses (one to a sub-500 team, one a total blowout against DeSmet) in which he contributed very little - less than 100 rushing yards combined on 27 carries. Again to my knowledge, the conferences they play in have been fairly comparable this year. Montee's team (Timberland) ranks 3rd in the St. Louis area's large schools ranking while Wingo's doesn't place. But the thing to keep in mind here is that Montee has produced every game at a high level, and he has done a large majority of his work in the first half of games because Timberland has been blowing people out of the water. I would love to see them take on East St Louis, a squad consisting of Kraig Appleton, Terry Hawthorne, '10 prospect Courtney Moulton, and some other boarderline D1 talent.

To make a long story short, I don't think Wingo will be competition for Ball come POTY voting, especially when considering careers, as said.

I'm not sure about Scheelhasse or Dalton this season. One of them is the incumbant POTY, but I don't remember which.

I'd like to see them take on ESL too.. I'd be very surprised if they did not end up winning the 7a IHSA state title this year (although they have to go through my Geneva Vikings to do that)

I hadn't heard anything about Moulton yet.. I guess I just forgot to look.. Moulton was easily their best back last year, although really small, it always took more than 1 of our guys to bring him down

[panther10]

who is having the better season? Dalton, Scheelhasse, or Ball?

[Bernini]

Originally Posted by MikeIsGood

Thanks, Bern. I still lurk a little bit.

As far as I know, Wingo is having a good year but not comparable to the one that Ball is having. It seems that he did almost half of his damage in one game (over 400 of his 1,001 rushing yards, and 7 of his 15 touchdowns) rather than being consistent, and his team has had 2 poor losses (one to a sub-500 team, one a total blowout against DeSmet) in which he contributed very little - less than 100 rushing yards combined on 27 carries. Again to my knowledge, the conferences they play in have been fairly comparable this year. Montee's team (Timberland) ranks 3rd in the St. Louis area's large schools ranking while Wingo's doesn't place. But the thing to keep in mind here is that Montee has produced every game at a high level, and he has done a large majority of his work in the first half of games because Timberland has been blowing people out of the water. I would love to see them take on East St Louis, a squad consisting of Kraig Appleton, Terry Hawthorne, '10 prospect Courtney Moulton, and some other boarderline D1 talent.

To make a long story short, I don't think Wingo will be competition for Ball come POTY voting, especially when considering careers, as said.

I'm not sure about Scheelhasse or Dalton this season. One of them is the incumbant POTY, but I don't remember which.

Originally Posted by panther10

who is having the better season? Dalton, Scheelhasse, or Ball?

I searched and found that Scheelhaase is Missouri's reigning POY, according to RISE magazine. Not locating his season stats anywhere, but I know that Rockhurst is 6-1 and ranked #2 in Missouri's largest class. Ball actually doesn't play in the largest class in Missouri. Timberland moved up a class in the offseason, but only to the 2nd largest (Class Five). So Scheelhaase has the competition edge. Besides just raw stats, that could be a factor, as well as overall team success, and the aforementioned previous history.

Dalton has actually been unbelievably ordinary this season. He's only averaging a paltry 149 yards per game passing, w/ 10 TD's, 9 INT's, and a 52 percent completion percentage. Theoretically if you're a high major college recruit you should be dominating overall in high school. Those #'s far from indicate domination. I was referring to ShowMeSportsOnline's old prospect rankings before. I think Rivals is absolutely correct to rank Ball ahead of Dalton at this point.

I've always thought that Wingo was overrated as a college prospect, but figured he'd dominate high school at least because of his size/speed advantage. Lack of production is now another case for him being overrated. Ball should be better than Wingo on the next level.

A few other players not mentioned who could challenge Ball are TJ Moe, Bryant Allen, and Jordan Webb. Both Moe and Allen are among the TD leaders and have the advantage of making an impact on both sides of the ball. Webb put up absolutely absurd #'s last year (55 TD's (+11 rushing), 6 INT's) and this year has 34 total touchdowns already leading Class Four Union to a perfect record.

I'd probably handicap the contenders like this:
1. Scheelhaase
2. Ball
3. Moe
4. Webb
5. Allen

Ball wins if neither Scheelhaase's or Moe's squads win the state championship but Timberland does.

Missouri is pretty much loaded this year. The rise of the Tigers came at the wrong time for Bucky.

[MikeIsGood]

Sorry if that wasn't clear enough on my part - Timberland plays in the "large school" class in the St. Louis area, and is the #3 team in STLToday's large school rankings of the area.

Link

But that is good to know. I wasn't sure where that stood as far as the whole state of MO went.

[panther10]

Do you all think that he can hit the 3,000 yard mark?

[MikeIsGood]

No. There is a good reason for that, though, and that is that he and his team are just too good. He's getting only about half as many carries as he did last season, and it's just because they don't need him since they often end up blowing out teams by halftime. They're resting his legs and keeping him healthy. As Badger fans, considering he'll be in our program for 3-to-5 years, we can appreciate that.

That said, his YPC is up, and he is on pace to eclipse his TD mark from a year ago, which is truly remarkable when you take into account how many fewer carries he's gotten this year.

[panther10]

what was his TD mark from last year?

[TroyD92]

Originally Posted by panther10

what was his TD mark from last year?

he ran for 3027 yards last year, and scored 32 touchdowns.

[MikeIsGood]

Panther, the article I posted at the top of this page has lots of good information on this front. Here is an excerpt, which seems to contain the info you're interested in:

"A year ago, Timberland's Montee Ball came within 39 yards of topping the area's single-season rushing record of 3,105 yards set in 1990 by Althoff's Hickey Thompson.

If he can run for 129 yards against visiting Washington on Friday, Ball would surpass another Althoff back, Jason Ford, to become the area's career rushing leader.

"Actually, I had no idea," said Ball, who said he learned of the impending achievement after it was announced during the Wolves' game last Friday.

A 6-foot-2, 212-pound senior who has committed to Wisconsin, Ball ran for 1,845 yards and 15 touchdowns and was the Post-Dispatch sophomore of the year in 2006. In 2007, he earned All-Metro honors after leading the area in rushing (3,077 yards) and scoring (32 touchdowns).
Ford, a freshman at the University of Illinois, finished last year with 6,415 yards.

Ball doesn't figure to reach the 3,000 mark this season. Timberland is blowing out opponents, so he's averaging about half the carries per game that he did last season, down from 29.8 to 16.7. But his per-carry average is way up, to 11.7 from 8.6 in 2007."

This season he has 25 touchdowns through 7 regular season games, with 3 remaining. He is thus on pace for about 36 TDs in the regular season. He's scoring better than 1-in-every-5 times he touches the ball.