Measurables
UNIVERSITY- Clemson AGE- 21 CLASS- JR
HEIGHT- 6’0” WEIGHT- 200 ARM LENGTH-
40 Time- 3 CONE- VERTICAL- BROAD JUMP- BENCH PRESS-
Overview
Coming into Clemson Andrew Booth Jr was a consensus 5 star recruit from Archer High School in Georgia. In his time there he primarily played CB but also had time as a WR and as a returner on special teams. In 2019 as a freshman Booth didn’t see much action but appeared in 13 games, finishing with 4 tackles. In 2020 he became much more involved as he played in 11 games and made 4 starts. He totaled 27 tackles, 2.5 TFL, 1 sack, 6 PBUs, 2 INTs and returned a fumble for a TD. Booth earned Second-team All-ACC honors for his efforts. In 2021 he started 11 games and finished with 37 tackles, 3 TFL, 5 PBUs and 3 INTs. He earned First-Team All-ACC for his efforts. Andrew Booth was also an academic standout in his high school years as well as his time as a collegiate athlete.
Strengths
I’ll start this out by saying that Andrew Booth Jr is the first prospect in this draft that I’ve truly fell in love with. Booth is a big, tall, lengthy CB with elite athleticism and instincts. From a coverage standpoint Booth has experience in a lot of various looks. As a press-man corner he has the strength to bully WRs off the line. Booth shows fantastic foot quickness to stay in stride with WRs all over the field. He also has elite explosiveness that he uses to make up for mistakes that he may make earlier in the route and allows him to never really be out of a play. Booth moves incredibly well in his backpedal and lateral movements in zone coverage. He showed a good understanding of his opponents limitations, if they lack speed he will instantly shade and cut off the underneath route. He has all the physical tools to be a lock-down man corner. His instincts in zone coverage and off-man coverage are top tier though. He shows an excellent understanding of down and distance and he will consistently play to the sticks. Booth is great at reading the QBs eyes and driving on the ball, all over the field. He shows fantastic ability to make catches away from his body and is able to high-point the ball very well out of the air. He has spectacular body control to make some eye-popping deflections or INTs. Run support is where you truly start to fall in love with Booth. He instantly reads a screen or an outside run play then his speed and determination to get to the football is unmatched. He makes more or as many plays at or behind the line of scrimmage than any CB I can remember, you swear you’re watching an elite SS prospect. Booth will absolutely rag-doll WRs who dare to get in his way and attempt to block him, I literally saw him hip-toss multiple guys. He plays the run with less than 0% hesitation, he will fly in there and deliver a blow, his tenacity leads to great stopping power and ball carriers don’t gain extra yards after first solid contact. Another reason to love Booth is his extremely high level of confidence in himself. He will literally not even get down in a stance sometimes at the line because he believes in his athletic ability so much. His competitive spirit is unmatched, he wants to make every play, regardless if it’s vs the run or the pass, I saw a game where he ran down a play from the opposite side of the field and saved a TD, he doesn’t stop.
Weaknesses/Room for Improvement
From a trait standpoint there’s really not any holes to speak of in Andrew Booth Jr’s game, however he will need to bottle all of his talent into a more controlled player. Even though you love his relentless spirit as a tackler he absolutely has to play with more control. He often runs in full speed and will completely miss the target. You have to find a happy medium with him, where he understands when he can take his killshots on a ball carrier and when he just needs to make a sound and secure tackle. From a coverage standpoint in man, he is a little stiff in his change of direction movements. Although they’re very sudden and his explosion in and out of these movements allows him to recover from the stiffness. You see a lot of false steps and technical errors in Booth’s man coverage technique, particularly when in press. A nuanced WR will be able to take advantage of his current deficiencies in this aspect and his speed won’t be able to save him until he cleans this up. This leads to many situations where he would likely get called for a holding penalty in the NFL. Clemson had its worst year in a while and when the team was making poor plays or not having success, you saw Andrew Booth with some poor body language that you would prefer not to see. This makes me question if this will become an issue in the future, he had an incident a few years ago where he had an opposing WR pinned to the grass and was punching him. This led to an ejection and leads me to want to keep an eye on his temperament as he progresses in the NFL. I believe by year 2-3 he could be one of the top CBs in the league if he takes the proper development. I could potentially see a Jalen Ramsey type CB that travels around the field and makes a strong impact in the run or short pass game.
Scheme Fit
Scheme flexible but better in zone coverage at the moment, he could develop into a lock-down man corner though. Outside Corner
Round Grade
Early-Mid First Round