Today we are focusing on Shaq Bond a Safety for Utah State. Bond is a 5’10” 190lbs, Senior, who was an Honorable Mention All-Mountain West last season. The film I watched to scout Bond was @ Boise State (2020) and @ Nevada (2020).
Pros:
Bond’s strengths start with his athletic ability. He has enough speed to play at the next level and he has smooth hips which allow him to break on a play or change directions with ease. He is decent in both man and zone but his strengths seem to be when he plays in press man coverage and he can get his hands on the Receiver or Tight End and run with them, which he doesn’t do often as a result of his scheme at Utah State. He is aggressive playing the run and comes downhill fast and has the ability to make plays in the box or in the backfield. He is a vocal and passionate on field leader which is always nice to have.
Cons:
As I previously said, most of the issues with Bond’s game comes from his mental lapses or is lack of effort. He isn’t the best at playing zone as he doesn’t do a great job at transitioning guys in and out of his zone. He also seems to have the lack of awareness to use his teammates for help in zone coverage and will get beat time to time in the middle of zones. When playing the run he often takes bad angles which put him out of position and he hardly ever gang tackles which can hurt his team. He will assume his teammates have a tackle made and then he will stop his pursuit, and on film you could see this as a RB gashed them for a TD after making his teammates miss. Bond also needs to work on wrapping up on his tackles as shoulder tackling at the next level will not work. He needs to improve majorly on his block shedding ability as he doesn’t seem to ever shed a block and make a play on a ball carrier. Finally, he could improve his awareness of the sticks on some plays.
Bottom Line:
Bottom line is that Shaq Bond has a decent framework to work with. He has some solid athletic ability and is aggressive and physical which help him both in playing the run and in coverage. He needs to learn to improve his angles, zonal awareness, wrapping up on tackles and block shedding ability if he plans to stick around at the next level. He is mostly used as a high safety at Utah State, but I see the most value in him as a dime backer and a special teams gunner at the next level. In the right scheme he could be a solid player. I have given him a rating of 4.8 which translates to a 6th round – UDFA pick.
