Meet the Commits: Grayson Muehlstein

You'll be forgiven if you overlooked Grayson Muehlstein a bit during the recruiting process.  His commitment was the day after DT Zaycoven Henderson committed to playing for TCU (Which he flipped on to go to Texas, before flopping to go to A&M.  Recruiting is dumb.) and was in the middle of TCU's hot pursuit of highly regarded Fort Worth All Saints' quarterback Foster Sawyer.  As a result the initial question was "Does this mean Sawyer isn't coming?" and when it turned out that TCU was just planning on taking two quarterbacks in the class and Sawyer was fine with it the chatter about Grayson died down considerably.   In many ways he was a model commitment, cancelling upcoming visits to other universities and pretty well shutting down his recruitment even as Sawyer committed and immediately had his name thrown into the chatter about the competition for next year's starting spot during the season of regret.  That is real commitment to the university, but it meant that his offer sheet stayed stuck on the nearly non-existent end- North Texas offered and Harvard had interest (Yep, he's not likely to be an academic risk at TCU) before he committed to the frogs and after that programs came by for a sniff but weren't interested in publicly losing a recruiting battle that had already been decided.

So we've established that he's overlooked and he was a standup guy in the recruiting process- what kind of player is he?  If anyone remembers former Arkansas Razorback quarterback Matt Jones you'll have a pretty good idea of the kind of raw material we're working with here.  Grayson is a a really good athlete who clocks in with a Boykin-esque 4.5 in the 40 yard dash, but he's much more of a strider than the quick footed Boykin, which means he's not really going to joke anyone out of their shoes but when he gets going he's hard to catch from behind, and his height gives his speed more of a deceptive feel which can result in pursuers taking bad angles (which shows up on his hudl film).  Grayson is a big threat on the ground, as his speed, size and deft fake ability make him a master of the zone read, and his intelligence in reading defenses is also often on display as he makes consistently good reads (though he'll need time to develop these natural talents to a college level coming from 3A ball) to get into the open field.

As a passer there's some work to be done for Grayson, as though he does appear to have the arm and the smarts for the job he doesn't have the best accuracy yet.  Much of that comes from his feet- he's often not getting properly set before he throws, on account of moving into position to take advantage of that athleticism we talked about earlier.  Throws tend to be a bit behind the receiver and though he has a strong arm he's missing on some deep throws because of happy feet, and he does tend to lock on to one receiver even when in the pocket, which is something he'll have to work on transitioning to the college level as well.  Still, Muehlstein has the physical tools, is tall, strong and fast and is a really nice dual-threat type quarterback if we're going to continue to be an option and zone read heavy team under the new offense.  A redshirt year should be guaranteed here, especially with TCU's new transfer coming in at QB and Boykin still being capable of being a dangerous goal line quarterback if we need one, which should give the staff a good deal of time to see how he develops and competes with the other young quarterbacks.  The other issue that will be on the table is a possible move to wideout like the aforementioned Matt Jones in the NFL- he's got speed, height and size to be a threat if it turns out that he's not going to be the victor in a quarterback derby, but for a smart kid that keeps his head down and works hard you shouldn't count him out of the quarterback derby starting in 2015- if he gets those happy feet set he could end up being too dynamic to put anywhere but behind center.