Rivals Rankings Week: Ranking Mertz vs. Hilinski
It is Rivals Rankings Week and the analysts don’t always see eye-to-eye. Here Rivals.com National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney and Midwest Recruiting Analyst debate whether Graham Mertz or Ryan Hilinski should be second among pro-style quarterbacks.
More Rivals Rankings week:
Monday: Updated Top 10 | Debating Smith vs. Thibodeaux
Tuesday: 2019 Rivals100 revealed
Wednesday: 2019 Rivals250 revealed
Thursday: 2019 position rankings revealed
GORNEY'S VIEW: RYAN HILINSKI
Call me a homer here, but over the last two years I’ve seen Hilinski develop so much and so rapidly that his future is incredibly bright and if he continues on this pace we might look back and wonder why he was not even higher in the rankings.
The South Carolina commit has excellent size, a serious arm where he can deliver passes all over the field, he can throw on the run, he’s super competitive, a great team leader and he played for more than half of his senior season without his top receiver - four-star Kyle Ford - who went down with a knee injury.
Still, Hilinski finished with 2,771 passing yards with 29 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in arguably the toughest high school football league in the country without, quite honestly, elite receivers except for 2020 standout Logan Loya. I love his competitive spirit, I love his toughness and determination and more than anything his vast improvement over the last two years.
I’m not bashing Mertz one bit. He had huge numbers this season and I thought he was really strong for long stretches this summer at the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge presented by adidas. But given the choice of who should be the No. 2 pro-style quarterback in the class behind Bo Nix, I’d take Hilinski.
HELMHOLDT'S VIEW: GRAHAM MERTZ
One of the most compelling cases for Mertz’s high rating during this cycle is his ridiculous level of consistency. But, make no mistake, the future Wisconsin Badger can provide plenty of wow factor as well. After stepping up to every challenge this past off-season, Mertz lit up the stat sheet as a senior by completing 62 percent of his passes for 3,886 yards and 51 touchdowns. He compiled those numbers in just 42 quarters of football, missing several games due to injury.
Statistics are just one way to measure a quarterback, though. An inordinate amount of time is spent measuring height and 40 speed. Arm strength is a measure and there are even ways to measure accuracy, but the top quarterbacks to ever play this game register across the board on those measurements. The one area every successful quarterback has scored high, however, is in the measurement of what’s between his ears and Mertz has consistently shown signs of that mental acumen and toughness.
From the U.S. Army Combine last January to when he drove out to Ohio to attend the Rivals 3 Stripe Camp Series presented by adidas event in Columbus and into the summer when he faced the best at the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge presented by adidas in Atlanta, Mertz relished each challenge and answered each question. When a high school quarterback is able to show that level of consistency, to rise up in different settings with different factors at play and perform at his best every time, I stand up and take notice. I’ve seen the best to come out of high school at the position in the last 15 years, and that ability is rare.
