Michigan State secured an impactful commitment on Saturday evening when three-star quarterback Hampton Fay became the 7th member of Mel Tucker’s 2021 recruiting class.

Make no mistake about it, Fay, despite his recruiting rankings–which we’ll get to in a minute–was a Plan A quarterback for Tucker and company. Fay and four-star QBs Kaidon Salter, Donaven McCulley and Peter Costelli were seemingly the top targets since the regime change. Tucker had a virtual visit with Salter last week and Fay was one of the few non-Michigan prospects that was able to get on campus before COVID-19 hit. MSU laid out the red carpet for him on his visit. They went after him hard.

In Fay Michigan State is getting a big, fast and strong athlete, who already possess some of the more nuanced skills required of playing quarterback in college. He is an impressive prospect, and only becomes more impressive once the proper context is given to his story. So let’s do that right now.

Hamp Fay is a three-star QB, ranked as the 36th-best pro-style QB in the class of 2021. He is an .8366 in the 247Sports composite ranking–tied for the lowest rating among MSU’s seven committed players. His ranking from just 247 (not the composite) is a little harsher still. Those rankings have him as the 40th-best pro-style QB in the country and the 205th-best prospect in *just* the state of Texas. Keep in mind those QB rankings don’t include the “dual-threat” quarterbacks, which have their own separate rankings, because apparently it is too tough to distinguish between the two genres of QB despite them being as blended together right now as they have ever been.

From a rankings standpoint, I get why Fay’s commitment might be more “humdrum” than “hoorah.”

However, in my meager opinion, those rankings–while justifiable–are not exactly accurate. Maybe as a total evaluation Fay is the 30-something-best pro-style QB prospect in the class of 2021, but he certainly isn’t that from an ability standpoint.

(A quick aside: I’m not a “stars don’t matter” person. They absolutely do. Your team should try to get as many five stars as they can. Always. I will say that for quarterbacks recruiting rankings matter a little bit less than all of the other positions because the difference between playing the position in high school and college is much larger than for every other position. A high school quarterback can dominate without ever learning how to read coverages because they face basic defensive concepts and a ton of mediocre opponents. Generally a quarterback has to know how to actually play some quarterback to succeed in college. You get the point.)

Hampton Fay has played three games as a starting varsity high school quarterback. Despite that he has 13 division one scholarship offers. As a sophomore Fay was primarily a receiver (a pretty good one too) on Texas 5A state champion Aledo High School’s team, while also taking some snaps at quarterback. As a junior he transferred to All Saints Episcopal in Fort Worth, TX and was the starting quarterback. He played in three games before a labrum injury ended his season. Despite that he’s still attracted a decent amount of D1 attention, including six power five offers. He threw for 845 yards and ten TDs with one interception in those three games. Fay also ran for 135 yards and two TDs. All three of Fay’s opponents either won or were runner up in their division for a state championship. So, what’s with his rankings?

Quarterback recruiting is a very odd world with a lot going into it. Kids are identified and developed at young ages. They go to passing camps and work with QB gurus and travel to colleges for summer camps and on and on and on. This happens with all high school football prospects, but it is turned up to ten with QBs. A lot of the top prospects at the position start for varsity teams at big programs as freshmen and sophomores. By time they finish their junior season and their recruiting is hitting its fever pitch they have 20 to 30 (and sometimes more) games started. Trevor Lawrence started 56 games in his high school career. Brian Lewerke started 33. That’s a lot of games to make a nice recruiting tape. That’s a lot of developmental experience. That’s a lot of opportunities to make the right throw with the right person watching. Five-star quarterbacks don’t get that ranking by being great for a handful of games during one season. It’s a long process.

So functionally it makes sense to me that Hampton Fay is rated the way he is. He’s got three games of tape. He hurt his shoulder. He won’t get to do the summer circuit because of COVID-19. I get it.

That doesn’t mean his ranking isn’t wrong.

Even with just three games worth of tape, Fay’s ability is obvious. I’ve curated a handful of clips from his Hudl highlight reel. I’m going to breakdown these clips in-depth, showing you some very good things and some things that need work. Through that you will see that Fay’s recruiting rankings–while understandable–don’t paint the whole picture.

Let’s get to the film.

This is the first play of Fay’s highlight film. I’m using it because it’ll serve as a good baseline of what you can expect the rest of this piece to be. It’s pretty simple. Fay throws a deep post to a wide open receiver for a TD. Hooray.

QB highlight films are chock full of plays like this; college prospects just dogging kids who are still worried about their algebra test on Monday. Sure, this is a nice display of Fay’s arm strength, a pretty effortless 45 yards, but there’s not much else to take from this play from a positive standpoint. Football will never be this easy in college. I’m looking for things that translate. This really doesn’t. What I did notice immediately in this play is bad upper body mechanics. When he winds up, Fay’s lead (left) shoulder should be pointed exactly on his target line, which is a few yards inside the hash. Instead he’s turned more towards the numbers which causes his upper body to be wide open to throw the post. This is a surefire way to lose power and accuracy. Luckily it doesn’t matter on this play and this is the only play I noticed sloppy upper body mechanics.

Here’s another strong arm throw, 40 yards on a rope and accurately so the receiver can run after the catch for the TD. Pretty standard stuff, but I thought you’d like to see it.

Fay’s footwork on his drops need a little works. Sometimes he shuffles back. Sometimes he takes a proper drop. It’s just a little sloppy. The good news is that is very common and easily corrected.

Let’s get to some good stuff. It’s pretty uncommon for high school quarterback film to have a lot of progression. Generally it’s “look at your first read and if it’s not there, go be a great athlete.” That works incredibly well in high school and if you’re talented enough (or in a great scheme), it can work in college too. Fay already shows some ability to scan the field. Here Fay takes the snap and starts right before scanning all the way to the left side of the play. He aligns himself, steps nicely with his front leg and snaps an accurate fastball into a tight spot for a touchdown.

This play would have been enough for me. Turn the film off. I’m good. Offer the scholarship. Sure, I’m being a bit hyperbolic, but you can literally run through the film of a number of top high school QBs and not see this level of quarterbacking. This translates. Had this been the only example, that would have been enough. But there’s more.

Similar process here. Fay starts right and works back to the middle of the field before delivering an accurate ball with enough touch on it to get it over the dropping linebacker.

This is pretty high level stuff for a kid who has played very little quarterback in high school.

Fay is also pretty damn comfortable under duress. This is another area that really great prospects struggle with once the defensive ends are 6-foot-5, 250 pound athletic freaks instead of a typical 5-foot-9, 175 pound kid who is taking his driver’s test next week.

Here Fay obviously feels the pressure, but doesn’t bail until he has to. That is really important. Even really good college (and professional!) QBs bail from clean pockets too often. Russell Wilson, as great as he is, bails from clean pockets all of the time. (I don’t blame him given he’s been protected by converted defensive tackles for his entire career). Fay manages the pocket, resets himself with his eyes up looking for a receiver. Too often a quarterback will feel pressure and his eyes will go right down.

A quarterback maneuvering in the pocket while keeping his eyes up as a viable passer is an incredible skill to have. Fay realizes his pocket is gone and bails out right before throwing an accurate dart on the run for a first down.

This play is even better. Fay has time and feels that. Nobody comes open and in this instance a lot of quarterbacks are tucking it and running. The right side of the pocket is collapsing in, so Fay moves left with his eyes still up the entire time. He works himself into space and rifles a touchdown to the back of the end zone before getting his head taken off.

If I’m picking nits, I’d say “When you move left to that open space, settle in, get your feet under you and throw with good mechanics.” It’s a little thing, but the way he casually worked himself into space and remained a passer to the bitter end is very impressive. Good throw on the move too.

Here’s another great example of his pocket presence. Fay settles into the pocket and starts reading his primary route. It doesn’t come open and the right side of his pocket is caving. He quickly maneuvers out of the way and starts to reset himself to throw because he’s noticed the primary defender on his receiver has just fallen down. He starts to load to throw and stops because the receiver also falls down. At this point he just gets what he can, which is a lot because he has a ton of open space.

The ability to evade that rush and not panic is really nice. He’ll learn to be more efficient with his pocket movements, so that he can slide up and left in the pocket while maintaining good throwing posture.

This next play is my favorite of the bunch. I’ll let you watch it and see if you can guess why. I cut the GIF early, but he scores here.

If your guess is something along the lines of, “Wil, that 6’5 QB just outran the entire defense for an 85 yard touchdown,” then you’re wrong. Well, partly. That is great. Fay is a phenomenal athlete, having been clocked at 4.68 in the 40. He’s also a sprinter and hurdler on the track team (more on that later!). He’s quite fast and will get faster. I do enjoy that, but what I really LOVE about this play is the way he deals with pressure right up the middle. He calmly steps around it and climbs up the pocket with his eyes up. Yes, he runs it for 85 yards, but Fay is a passer until the moment he crosses the line of scrimmage. He’s holding the ball with two hands and still looking for a receiver before bolting for a long TD.

I just mentioned he’s a hurdler on the track team. Here’s a 6’5 QB hurdling a defender.

Pretty good.

I like this next play for a couple reasons. First, it’s a nice display of his ability to throw off platform, which will happen. Fay has an impressive arm. Second I like how quickly he reacts. Off the play fake he’s got a defender right in his throwing lane. Because of the design of the play this is a potential outcome. The hope is that the defensive end bites on the play fake and attacks the running back. If the end doesn’t bite he should have a good shot at batting the ball down. But Fay creates a throwing lane with his feet and arm and delivers an accurate ball on time.

While overall Fay does a good job in the pocket, he does sometimes bail from clean pockets. In this play he just gets impatient and bails with absolutely no pressure. He’s a great athlete so he gets upfield and scores a touchdown here, but that isn’t going to work out quite so well in college.

Here Fay hits the top of his drop and takes off from a pretty clean pocket. I don’t have a huge problem with him stepping up like that, but had he shuffled up into the pocket (instead of running up) he could have kept himself a passer long enough for the wheel route to come open on his right.

If this type of stuff was happening every play, it’d be a concern moving forward. Given that I’ve already shown you a few plays where he does the opposite of this, I think this is something that will end up getting worked out. Fay is comfortable in the pocket and with some pressure around him. It’ll get harder to do so once he gets to college and everyone gets bigger and faster, but he’s already better at it than a great number of his peers.

In Hampton Fay Michigan State is getting a big, athletic quarterback who possesses a strong arm and an impressive amount of savviness. Factor in his limited experience and the savviness is doubly impressive. A lot of really great quarterback prospects see their football journeys come to an end because they reach a level of football where their natural gifts aren’t enough to overcome their inability to play the position cerebrally. When I watch Fay’s tape, I don’t see someone in danger of that. I see someone who is already able to go through progressions. I see someone comfortable in the pocket. I see someone willing to be a passer until the bitter end instead of taking the first sign of danger as a moment to out-athlete everyone. And when that danger does come and the chance to throw the ball has gone out the window, I see someone with an impressive amount of open-field ability.

Given he has only started three high school games and his shoulder injury, I get why Hampton Fay’s ranking is where it is. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong.