Highlights & Evaluation: Louisville OT Commit Joel Ervin

The Louisville football program has landed another big time offensive line pickup, with Joel Ervin picking the Cardinals as his college.

Here is Louisville Cardinals On SI's full evaluation:

Prospect: Joel Ervin
Position: Offensive Tackle
Measurables: 6-foot-6, 310 pounds
School: Fort Myers (Fla.) HS
Top Offers: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Miami, USC
247Sports Composite Rating (Nat'l Rank): 0.8693 (707th)

Joel Ervin's Junior Year Highlights: HERE (Hudl)

Frame: Ervin could benefit from converting some of his weight to pure muscle, but he looks every bit of his 310-pound frame. He has a lot of weight packed on, especially in his upper arms and thighs. Additionally, he has an above-average wingspan to go with his well above-average height

Athleticism: As you can imagine with someone of Ervin's size, he has very good play strength, and regularly looks like one of the strongest players on the field in one of Florida's top high school classifications. While his footwork and overall agility is so-so, he actually moves north-south fairly well for someone of his size.

Instincts: Overwhelming is probably the best way to describe Ervin. He has an incredibly violet initial strike thanks to both his wingspan and strength, and very rarely lets defenders get a good counter in. On top of that, thanks to his bulky lower half, he rarely ever gets stood up by defenders and almost always can stand his ground. Additionally, he has great driving power, and often will stay engaged in a block either for several yards downfield, or drive them straight into the ground. He's also not afraid to hustle downfield to make second level blocks and is willing to pull across the line, although his consistency with both is hit-or-miss.

Polish: Ervin lined up exclusively at left tackle for Fort Myers, but could project as a right tackle at the college level. Not only is Ervin much more far along in run blocking, he's not super explosive out of his stance, and his kick slide on pass protection is a bit clunky - though this might be due to Fort Myers running their offensive line primarily out of three-point stances. In fact, while his north-south footwork/agility is good, his lateral movement overall could use some work. Additionally, film sometimes shows Ervin mixing up his run blocking fundamentals with his ones in pass protection - although it's not super often.

Bottom Line: Overall, this is a pickup that has a lot of potential and upside to it. Sure, Ervin has to clean up some of his fundamentals if he wants to stay at left tackle, but linemen with his combination of size, length and strength do not come along very often. With some college-level coaching and conditioning, he could compete for serious playing time in year one.

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