Betrand makes it 10 for A&M
The latest news and analysis on Texas A&M's newest commit for the 2023 class is brought to you by Branch & Dhillon, P.C.!
Texas A&M picked up its 10th commit for the 2023 class Saturday with the addition of Philadelphia Northeast offensive lineman Naquil Betrand.
The 6-foot-7, 315-pound offensive tackle had originally committed to Colorado, but de-committed from the Buffs on July 4. He narrowed his list to a final six that included Kentucky, Auburn, Georgia, Penn State, Syracuse and the Aggies in mid-July, and visited College Station last weekend.
The trip to College Station, along with the recruiting work of offensive line coach Steve Addazio and Northeast specialist Elijah Robinson, was enough to convince Betrand to switch from a Kentucky lean to an A&M commit.
Betrand gives the Aggies 10 commits for the 2023 class, and two of the last four have come from the Northeast corridor. The other, Chase Bisontis, is another one of A&M's offensive line commits.
The Aggies now have three prospective tackles in the 2023 class, with Betrand joining Bisontis and longtime commit Colton Thomasson of Smithson Valley. Six of A&M's 10 current commits are either 4- or 5-stars according to Rivals.com.
Analysis of A&M's newest commit
You can't teach size and strength, and Betrand has those in spades. He is absolutely massive and can just bully many of his opponents.
You can see his strength as he just shoves opposing linemen aside. If a linebacker somehow has to deal with him, it's not going to end well for the defender. He'll probably end up flattened.
Betrand has tremendous lower body strength, which you can see as he pushes defensive linemen 15 or 20 yards down the field. He's also got extremely long arms, which he should be able to use to gain control when grappling with a defender.
Betrand still has a lot of work to do technically. He bounces right out of his stance to full height immediately, a big no-no. He also doesn't use his arm length to his advantage as much as he should, allowing defenders to get in on him. He needs to get his weight forward on the balls of his feet instead of either in the middle or on his heels, because then he'll have the advantage of having all of his strength moving forward at an overmatched defensive lineman.
Betrand improved significantly from his sophomore to junior seasons and hopefully he'll continue to do so. If he can improve his technique to match his size and strength, he could be a real force on an SEC offensive line.