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RB Trey Sermon (2020 B1G CCG MVP, Indianapolis Colts)

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Ohio State’s running backs coach Tony Alford sits down with Niners Nation to talk about Trey Sermon

We spoke Sermon’s personality, leadership, background, and what he’ll bring to the 49ers

Here’s my conversation with Sermon.

Initially, they had canceled the B1G season, while the Big-12 was all systems go. Did you ever get the sense that Sermon felt like his career was in limbo?
Actually, I thought if they’re going to cancel here I was wondering if they’re going to leave here and go either back [to Oklahoma] or go play somewhere else. We had those conversations, and he was like ‘Coach, I’m good. I’m not going anywhere.’

His faith was unbelievable. He told me, ‘Coach, we’re gonna play. It’ll work out. Everything is gonna work out. This is what we’re gonna do.’

How familiar were you with Sermon out of OU? I remember watching him as a true freshman and being blown away.
[ Laughing] I always thought he was a hell of a player, or else we wouldn’t have recruited him as a player and we dang sure wouldn’t have gone after him as a grad transfer.

I think one of the things is that he had a slow start with us, if you will. A lot of that was attributed to him coming off a serious knee injury. He missed half of the season. Then he doesn’t get a spring. COVID knocked out any real type of training camp.

He’s now in a new setting, new offense, different type of offense. There’s a lot that played into that. The one thing about him is he kept his nose down. He didn’t freak out. He’s very calm and collected. Calculated. When it was time for him to show up, he did.

You mentioned not having a spring, and that has a lot to do with what I’m about to ask you. He was essentially RB2 for the first five games. You rotated [Master] Teague, but Teague was getting more carries. How will that help him going to a situation like the 49ers who constantly rotate running backs?
I think his whole career has been like that. You go back to Oklahoma and it’s been like that. Then he came here and it was like that. Whether he wanted it that way or whether we wanted it that way or not, that’s what it was. Whatever those reasons were that manifested itself to that, it is what it is.

So that’s not going to shock his system, one. Two, he’s got less wear and tear on his body. Trey doesn’t have a lot of wear and tear on that tread, now. Where some guys you walk out and they’re all beat to hell after four years of getting mashed. He doesn’t have that type of wear and tear on his body, which is going to help him.

He’s had his share of injuries. If you play this game, you can 100% with certainty say you’re going to have injuries if you play this game at a high level. Not 50%, not maybe 100%. Something is going to happen to you, however severe or not, something is going to happen.

So he doesn’t have the wear and tear on him. His mental state... that kid is so grounded. He’s singularly grounded. Whatever comes at him, Trey Sermon is going to be fine.

Entire article: https://www.ninersnation.com/2021/5...-with-niners-nation-to-talk-about-trey-sermon
 
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Inside the 49ers: Is running back Trey Sermon on path to instant impact?

Third-round draft pick Trey Sermon could be an instant impact or an injury risk for the 49ers

So the 49ers did, after all, draft a Georgia high school star who transferred to Ohio State and boosted his stock in a playoff rout of Clemson.

Just not Justin Fields. Say hello, instead, to Trey Sermon.

Sermon could make the most immediate impact among this 49ers’ draft class.

Time will tell how he fits into a running back corps already loaded with experienced starters in Raheem Mostert, Jeff Wilson Jr. and Wayne Gallman.

Rookie camp opens next week. Before you bookmark him for your fantasy football team, here is what’s to know about Sermon:

— His 4.57-second 40-yard dash doesn’t fit the profile of 49ers’ speedsters in recent years under Kyle Shanahan. However, a 4.58-second time in 2005 worked out just fine for Frank Gore, the 49ers’ all-time leading rusher.

Gore, like Sermon, was a third-round pick, as were Hall of Famers Bob St. Clair (1953), Dave Wilcox (’64), Joe Montana (’79) and Terrell Owens (’96).

— General manager John Lynch on Sermon’s speed: “You may look at his 40 time and say he doesn’t really fit, but sometimes 40 times can be deceiving. What speaks to us is his 10 time (1.49-second 10-yard split) was very good.

“So you see that burst. You see that ability to stick his foot in the ground, break tackles and hit it in a hurry. And then he’s very adept at making the free safety, the second-level defender miss and he’s really good out of the backfield in the past game as well.”

— Scot McCloughan, a former 49ers general manager who runs his own scouting service, does not envision Sermon as a starter.

“If you watch (Leonard) Fournette in the playoffs for the Bucs, (Sermon) is going to be like that. He’s going to run the ball when he needs to,” McCloughan told The Athletic. “He’s going to catch the ball and make some plays. But he’s never gonna be fancy. It’s never gonna be “Wow!” type plays. I think he’ll be solid on teams and he’ll be a good No. 2. I imagine he’ll be good in pass pro. He has a big body.”

— A left-knee injury (lateral collateral ligament) ended his three-year term at Oklahoma, and a separated shoulder ended his college career, that injury coming on the first play of Ohio State’s national championship game.

And now? “I’m 100 percent,” said Sermon, who also sustained a back fracture his junior year of high school.

Shanahan said the 49ers tried to avoid health risks this draft, because of the 49ers’ luck the past few years. He added that last season’s injuries “hit us harder than anything, hit us before COVID, and that’s something we can’t do again.”

Entire article: https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/05...g-back-trey-sermon-on-path-to-instant-impact/

Just sayin': Interesting perspective from a Bay Area newspaper.
 
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ESPN recently published an article highlighting surprise players everyone should know from minicamps for all 32 NFL teams, and Sermon was the choice of writer Nick Wagoner.

“Sermon was drafted to provide depth behind veterans Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson Jr. with an eye toward a bigger role in the future,” Wagoner wrote. “But that future might arrive sooner than later as Wilson is out four to six months following meniscus surgery and as Mostert deals with some lesser knee issues. Sermon made a strong first impression, particularly as a pass-catcher out of the backfield, and he looks poised to make an impact as a rookie so long as it carries over to training camp and the start of the season.”
 
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NFBuck said:
I remember being wholly underwhelmed with Sermon after the first couple of games. Then something clicked and he went on a Zeke-like tear...
Click to expand...

bowtiethatguy said:
I don’t think anything clicked for Sermon .. he just wasn’t getting the carries he needed to get in the groove and when he finally got to carry the load alone .. he was able to show who he was … the first few games he was getting 9-11 carries and they were coming sporadically through out a game .. soon as Teague left against Michigan State he was able to turn up
Click to expand...

Apparently he did his due diligence before transferring and knew exactly what he wanted, etc.:

How Sermon prepared for NFL watching 49ers film in college

Trey Sermon is set to start his NFL career at full speed.

When the rookie running back was preparing to transfer from Oklahoma to Ohio State, he made it a point to study game film of NFL teams that ran an outside zone running scheme. The 49ers were a team that Sermon focused on throughout the process.

“When I was making the transition to Ohio State, I was looking at a lot of outside zone,” Sermon said. “The 49ers were definitely one of the teams that I looked at. Just going through the progressions and the reads because I knew when I got to Ohio State we were going to run a lot of that.”

Kyle Shanahan uses his running backs as both ball carriers as well as receivers, and Sermon is well prepared. During his three seasons at the University of Oklahoma, the Georgia native carried the ball 339 times for 2,076 yards (6.1 yards per carry) and 22 touchdowns. He also recorded 36 catches for 391 yards and three touchdowns.

In his senior season at Ohio State, Sermon improved to 7.5 yards per carry on 116 carries for 870 yards and four touchdowns. He also managed 12 catches for 95 yards.
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Sermon expects his adjustment period to the NFL to go smoothly with Turner as his coach and his past experience of Ohio State’s similar system. He added that it was just a “great feeling” to finally get back on the field again during rookie minicamp.

“It hasn’t been too difficult just making the transition,” Sermon said. “Some of the stuff is similar to what I did at Ohio State. I feel like my acclimation will be pretty smooth and it will be good.”

Entire article: https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/how-trey-sermon-prepared-nfl-watching-49ers-film-college
 
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