Olu Fashanu, OT, Penn State (Junior)
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Rayane M
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Strengths :
- Takeoff : explosive for his size
- NFL-ready build
- Truly powerful
- Rapid and visible progression
-
Appears more athletic than in the 2022/2023 season
- Starting to become truly dominant
Weaknesses :
- Still plays off-balance too often
- Footwork needs immediate improvement
- Plays too upright
- Tends to disengage from blocks too early
- Sometimes very naive
- Still too Raw technically
- Hand technique could be improved
OT Olu Fashanu
— Rayane M (@RayaneScout) December 28, 2023
Young, powerful, athletic and, above all, constantly improving.
His ceiling seems particularly high while his floor keeps climbing with every game he plays.
1st Round Talent 💎 pic.twitter.com/S2SstTzWlS
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"Olumuyiwa Fashanu, true to his name, was the seemingly good but ultimately misguided idea at the start of the 2023 draft. A player praised by American scouts and media recently, being hyped up as one of the top Tackles of this class, spoiler alert, we're far from it."
These were my concluding words on Olu Fashanu's scouting last year, and while nothing then would have changed my mind about his level last season, Olu chose to return for an additional season at Penn State, to everyone's surprise. Thus, we're no longer in 2023, and Olumuyiwa has taken advantage of a full additional season to refine his game, and spoiler alert, he has clearly made the most of it.
Fashanu is truly powerful, and if he can sometimes seem more heavy than powerful because he doesn't always crush and blast defenders as other prospects might, this dominating aspect has been significantly amplified this season. He may still not be THE man when it comes to delivering the hit of the year, but he's much more dominant, especially in his ability to finish blocks with power. Adding that once he lays his hands on the defender, it's almost certain he'll win his rep, is a very good sign for him.
Finally, the most impressive point about Fashanu is his absolutely meteoric progression. He improves on certain aspects from game to game, and his progress is visible, terrifying in the best sense of the word. He's already a completely different player from last season and continues to progress. His run blocks are better, his base wider as mentioned, he's trying to play lower to maximize his Leveragecapability, improved his hand technique and the velocity of his punch, and tried to work on his Footwork. All the mentioned points will be discussed below, but even if for some we're still far from the goal, the fact of having worked on them and especially having progressed on all these points is already extraordinary, especially since for some aspects, the leap from last season to this one is huge. Thanks to this, Olu proves that his ceiling and potential can indeed be extremely high.
Of course, Olu Fashanu doesn't only have drool-worthy points in his game, far from it. The very young 21-year-old player still has a lot of work to do to even come close to touching his seemingly high ceiling, and the most important point for Olu to work on is undoubtedly his Footwork.
His legs are still too often stopped when he's engaged in Run blockHe has a tendency to root himself, which is a pity considering that in Pass pro he manages to activate his legs much better.
While an improvement can be seen between the 2022 and 2023 seasons, he's not yet at the level, in my opinion. For example, he still makes mistakes on his first steps in certain situations.
In Pass pro as well, I find that his Footwork I find that once engaged in a block, his footwork is too often reactive rather than proactive; he follows the rusher rather than redirecting him, whereas once engaged, he could, with his strength, become the actor and take control. The direct consequence of enduring the block is that on an explosive change of direction, he can find himself out of position, and with his somewhat random hand placement, it can quickly lead to situations where he's exposed to flags for HoldingIn the worst case, he gets completely outplayed, allowing pressure or a sack, and as I write these lines with tapes of him playing in the background, that's exactly what just happened in his game against Illinois, even though he had well blocked the player and had him perfectly locked down.
Because of this spectator side, he can sometimes appear as being too "passive" on certain blocks, especially in Pass proI'd like him to be much more dominant because he really has the capabilities and indeed shows it sometimes on certain reps.
I also find Fashanu sometimes really vulnerable to Counter moves due to a certain imbalance in his game. This is particularly the case on interior-exterior attacks, and he will need to be more cautious not to overreact to the interior on Pass pro. Olu knows it's one of his weaknesses, and as a result, he tends to overprotect his interior even when it's not necessary, attacking very quickly even when he has guard help. Therefore, he should be careful not to expose himself too much on the outside. Because of this, Olu is also vulnerable to Stunts, his game against Auburn in 2022 being a good example as he gets caught several times on his outside because he stays engaged with the interior rusher. Moreover, Olu sometimes still shows vulnerability on plays where he doesn't remain under control, and there are still too many plays where he doesn't distribute his weight well enough, making him susceptible to techniques such as, Push-pullor even just a well-timed Swim move . There's noticeable progress between 2022 and 2023, but the work is far from done.
Like many young players, Olu tends to play too upright and thus doesn't take advantage of optimal Leverage he absolutely needs to lower his center of gravity to improve his run blocks, especially since he still has work to do on his head and hip placement on certain specific blocks (the two types of blocks that really come to mind are the Down blocks and some Zone blocks. He sometimes tends to reach for the player with his hands before properly positioning his body on these blocks, putting him in a weak position over the gap he must cover, quickly leading to avoidable flags. Once again, despite the progression in his 2023 season, he still seems to struggle to really swing his hip once the block is engaged in order to create a path for the ball carrier. This is again a matter of Footwork , but if he manages to overcome this hurdle, he could really take on a whole new dimension.
A point that greatly annoys me with Fashanu, because it's not a difficult issue to fix, is his bad habit of taking his eyes off his opponent mid-play to see what's happening behind him when he thinks he's won his rep.
The problem is that often the rep isn't actually finished; his QB might still be rolling or looking for targets, and Olu then has to resume his effort and block in a hurry. It's not uncommon to see the QB forced to throw, run, or get rid of the ball, whereas before the block was released, everything was fine.
Having really redone all his scouting to see his progression from last season, this tendency is still too recurrent. He needs to stop this as soon as possible.
The last point to discuss about Olu, but a very important one, is his average punching ability and rather slow hands. Whether on a run or pass block, his hands are slow to come out, making him really vulnerable to hand techniques.
It's not rare to see him get tricked by techniques based on handwork (all variants of chops or clubs, or sometimes just by having his hands hunted). I fear that in a Pro style offense with pass plays that can take time to develop, he would have allowed numerous sacks or pressures because of this.
In situations of Pass pro, he often places his hands after the defender has placed his, and two problems then arise. First, he doesn't win the inside of the defender's shoulder pad, which is crucial for dominating in the trenches, losing his ability to direct the block where he wants it. Second, if his hands arrive late, he makes the task much harder if he wants to grab the defender because holding will be clearly more visible, and just from the first viewings of tapes, he gets away with several Holding non-called, both in his 2022 and 2023 seasons. Personally, this is one of the points I find concerning with Fashanu.
In addition to his hands being quite slow to come out and having a rather average punch, his hand placement also needs work; he often ends up with his hands outside the numbers and struggles to reposition them (there are many repositioning attempts throughout the season, it's in progress between 2022 and 2023, a slow progress but progress nonetheless), so when he's beaten, it's noticeable, and again, he exposes himself to calls for Holding. In 2022, particularly, the number of unseen or unflagged holdings is alarming, and although we still see this bad hand placement in 2023, very/too far outside whether on Pass pro or Run block, we see that he has tried to work on it.
Most of the time, his strength compensates for these weaknesses, but as soon as he faces a quality rusher, the same problems will recur because his hands are still too slow on some reps, giving the rusher time to work technically, and inevitably, Footwork becomes crucial in this case, and unfortunately, we know that with Olu, we're far from having an elite Footwork .
If the weaknesses section has cooled you on Olu Fashanu, that was clearly not my intention, but it's essential to understand that while his potential is enormous, Fashanu won't arrive in the NFL ready to play at a starter level, but to be completely honest, for the moment, he's really at the same level of hype as Joe Alt for me.
For different reasons, of course, as they are two very different players. Where we have a technically cleaner player with a higher floor and really better in Pass pro with Joe Alt, his lack of dominance on some reps can sometimes bother me. With Olu Fashanu, on the other hand, we have more of a raw diamond, both physical and highly promising, but a raw diamond implies work to be done, and for the time being, Olu is still very Raw despite significant progression between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 seasons. I wouldn't be surprised to see him cost his team foolish flags in his first pro years as he adjusts and progresses technically.
Choosing between the two remains the question on most fans' lips looking for an OT this year, and ultimately, it's a purely personal choice, depending entirely on your team's affinity with one or the other and also the offensive scheme your team uses.
Personally, I prefer to bet on Fashanu's ceiling because if Alt seems already ready at the moment, Olu keeps progressing, it becomes impressive, and that's perhaps the most exciting point about him. Seeing the progression he had in two seasons at Penn State, I'm dying to see him develop in the hands of an NFL coach. Adding my love for physical OLs who can really dominate their opponents, it becomes clear that my choice leans more towards Fashanu than Alt, but either way, there's no bad choice given the level of play displayed.
Clearly in my top 3 OTs this season and a Top 10 Draft pick lock.