Is DeChaun Holiday (@DechaunCHoliday) a cornerback or safety recruit?
DeChaun Holiday is one of the most highly coveted players in the state of California, and is garnering interest from schools around the country.
Holiday attends San Marcos (Calif.) Mission Hills High School and is projected to play defensive back at the next level. He is listed at 6'2 and weighs in at 195 pounds.
He is a consensus four-star prospect, receiving the rating from 247sports, Rivals, Scout and ESPN. Rivals, Scout and ESPN list him as a cornerback, while 247sports lists him as a safety. The former three consider him one of the top 20 cornerbacks in the country, while 247sports ranks him as the sixth-best safety in the nation. The 247sports composite, which aggregates the ratings of all four major recruiting services, considers him a four-star recruit, ranking him as the eighth-best safety in the nation and the 16th-best player in the state of California.
Holiday has a number of high-profile offers, including Oklahoma, Oregon, UCLA, USC, Florida State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Texas A&M. He can be found on Twitter @DechaunCHoliday.
Scouting by Derrell Warren (@yssd): Holiday is a recruit who carries premium-level size and length. He has above-average speed but possesses the length and body type college and NFL coaching staffs are increasingly beginning to covet.
While Holiday is featured on both of sides of the ball on his high school team, his eventual ceiling is highest as a defensive back. Most services have him listed as a safety recruit. However, in the right system one could definitely see him staying at cornerback (his high school position).
On tape, Holiday plays his share of off-coverage. This doesn't give an ideal opportunity to see his ability to flip his hips and turn and run with receivers. However, he shows good hip fluidity out in space. In off-coverage, he can attach himself to receivers coming out of their breaks. I do wonder how he would fare in press-man and whether he'd be able to win at the break point of routes against shiftier receivers.
Playing press coverage at the college level, he'll likely have to play aggressively with his hands at the line of scrimmage. He's a bit high cut, therefore a long strider. He doesn't show the burst in short areas to mirror more explosive receivers through their initial release. I would like to see more of him using his hands to disrupt and re-route receivers at the line as he develops.
As a backline defender, Holiday would probably be a better fit at free safety. While a committed tackler, he's not a knockout hitter, so he'd better project as a deep safety operating in tandem with a more physical defender down in the box.
Another reason analysts like Holiday so much at safety is his nearly peerless ball skills. There are receivers in this class who don't make as many impressive plays on the ball as Holiday. He drives on intermediate routes very well.
His experience as a receiver comes to the forefront as he times his jumps well, able to pluck the ball at its highest point and away from his frame. His upper flexibility and body control allow him to contort his frame and adjust mid-air to position himself to make a play on the ball. He often does a better job doing this than the receivers the passes are intended for.
While it's possible that he could play corner in certain systems, the safer projection for him would be free safety. He has high-BCS-starter-level ability at the position with his length and the ball skills necessary to finish plays by creating turnovers.