I'll just mention Chase Litton real quick. I'm glad he's on Slimm's list.
As I've been saying since he was a high school junior playing at Wharton just down the road from me, he's an NFL talent. Tall, nice arm, good stroke, won the "Golden Gun" award at the Atlanta southeast regional Elite 11 competition or something like that. He has body movement skills, standout basketball player, etc. I believe he led his Team Tampa 7-on-7 team to an IMG National Championship title. I mean, pretty damn good.
But it became clear as he went through the recruiting process (and also got caught boosting stuff from peoples' trunks at a country club, despite what seems to be a pretty well-to-do background) that he had a lot of maturing he needed to do. Grades have been an issue, like I said he even got into legal trouble, he made enemies among recruiters, there was some sort of bad blood that ended up developing between he and the USF coaches and even some of his fellow recruits, etc.
He ended up at Marshall. His true freshman year started off magically, as he ended up taking the reins from Michael Birdsong (who had transferred from JMU specifically to be handed a starting job on an FCS team), and then had this ridiculous game against Norfolk State. But then the defenses got better, they started to catch onto his habits, he seemed mediocre the rest of the year albeit good for a true freshman which is what he was. He led his team to 10 wins and a bowl game. That's good.
And last year again he plays against the likes of a Morgan State, throws SIX touchdowns in that game (in only 16 attempts). He follows it up with this incredible first QUARTER against Akron where he goes 6 of 11 for 113 yards and 3 TDs. And he basically only played the first half against Morgan State, so at one point you were looking at a kid that had played 3 quarters of football and gone 19 of 27 for 422 yards, 9 TDs and 0 INTs.
The problem is it went STEEPLY down hill from there. He goes 212 of 344 for 2190 yards, 15 TDs, 9 INTs the rest of the way. That's like an 84 passer rating at a program that generally has very good passing, throwing to some NFL caliber players like Deon-Tay McManus and especially Michael Clark who is doing well on the Packers. Ryan Yurachek is an NFL prospect at tight end.
The image you had was of a kid that fell in love with his own magical ride and got lazy. His decision-making certainly seemed to fit that narrative. He kept trying to force the big play, didn't seem mentally prepared.
It came off like a typical sophomore slump, even though I didn't necessarily think he had the kind of freshman year that for example guys like Andrew Luck and Sam Darnold have had. But that 2015 was an impressive run as he came to camp basically the fourth string guy, then beat guys one by one until he became the backup to the planned starter Birdsong, and then when Birdsong took a minor injury, Litton took the job from him and never let go, rattled off 7 straight wins, beat UConn in the bowl game, finished 9-2, etc. So I guess 2016 could be viewed like a sophomore letdown year.
This year he's supposedly up to 230 lbs and from pictures, he kind of looks beefy like he really has put on the weight. Doc Holliday tends to be a straight shooter, he tends to be pretty sparing with his praise IMO and in fact some of the frustration with Litton in the past revolved around the fact you could kind of tell Holliday was so-so on Chase's total ethic and maturity level. It wasn't the way Holliday used to gush about Rakeem Cato. But this year Holliday has said that Litton's approach has been kind of night and day. Litton attended a Manning Camp as a counselor along with guys like Kenny Hill, Lamar Jackson, Sam Darnold, Tanner Lee, etc.
Will continue to watch and monitor. I'm not going to inflate his NFL prospects based on my having followed him for a while. He's got all the ingredients but it still hasn't turned into a cake.