JB's Defensive Back of the Week: Minnesota Gopher Benjamin St-Juste

[BleedGopher]

per JB:

After playing sparingly at Michigan, the former four-star recruit by way of Canada, tapped into his potential during his time at Minnesota. Taking a deep dive into St-Juste this week, he appears to be a cornerback who is not getting the attention he deserves.

Mental Processing
Minnesota asks St-Juste to play a healthy blend of off coverage and press-man. When aligned in off coverage playing man-to-man, he processes releases and route stems at an impressive speed showing the ability to keep his leverage. He displays quick eyes in zone coverage, with a knack for seeing routes that are coming from the opposite side of the field and climbing with depth. He rarely falls for route concepts that find most corners covering grass when a receiver leaves their zone. St. Juste always looks for routes coming back into his area, seeing the field with the depth, so that nothing goes over his head crossing back from the opposite side of the field.

Press Coverage
The instinctual St-Juste shows excellent mirroring abilities in press coverage due to extreme patience that forces the receiver to declare. He understands the importance of keeping space without giving up any ground for the wide receiver to cut back underneath him. St-Juste shows

advance press skills when he can kick slide at a 45-degree angle on vertical releases, forcing the receiver to run the route through him or around him to push vertical. Once he slides his feet laterally to the receiver, he then uses his excellent length to stab receivers. Where he loses, is in press coverage, he tends to shoot his jab without moving his feet at times, causing his hips to lock and give the receiver a step on him.

JB's Defensive Back of the Week: Minnesota Gopher Benjamin St-Juste

JB's Defensive Back of the Week is an honor and our inaugural Defensive Back of the Week is a sleeper who could catapult himself into a Top-75 pick when all is said and done.

www.si.com

Go Gophers!!

 

[stocker08]

Nice long article. A lot of good stuff here. That would be really impressive if he could boost himself into the top 75. A second round pick would be cool.

Here's the article conclusion:

In what has the makings of a very deep cornerback class, Benjamin St-Juste is a cornerback prospect that is currently being unheralded. He owns everything you want in a Day Two cornerback and is worthy of top-75 overall consideration. Lack of long speed and ball production is what hurts him from possibly being considered even higher than that. With all the makeup of a future starter at the NFL level due to his scheme versatility, St-Juste will be a late riser who goes from being the defensive back of the week, to possibly being the flavor of the month for teams come April.

 

[SixBySix]

It seemed like he had an off year this season, including some very poor missed tackles, but he was fantastic in 2019.

 

[CurveballJesus]

It kind of slipped under the radar, but BSJ got a last second invite to the Senior Bowl and it sounds like he made himself some money

5 potential Chargers prospects who stood out from Day 3 of Senior Bowl

Chargers Wire’s Gavino Borquez notes the prospects who put on a show at the Senior Bowl on Thursday.

chargerswire.usatoday.com

Notes from Day 2 at the 2021 Senior Bowl

More standouts and observations from Mobile, Alabama

www.bucsnation.com

Quinn Meinerz, Richie Grant, more Senior Bowl week winners

Players won’t compete in the Senior Bowl until Saturday, but some have already made a great and likely lasting impression for the NFL draft.

theathletic.com

BSJ excerpt from the Athletic:

Benjamin St-Juste, CB, Minnesota: A top-rated recruit out of Canada, St-Juste originally signed with Michigan before a falling out regarding his injury/scholarship status, and he transferred to Minnesota. He was a late add this week and took advantage of the opportunity, standing out with his size (6-3, 200) and speed. St-Juste is undisciplined and grabby, but his foot quickness and burst were impressive, using his 80¼-inch wingspan to be disruptive.

 

[matt]

St-Juste is undisciplined and grabby

Man, he sounds like an HR nightmare. I’m sure Nagy will have some character issues to spread now if he didn’t before...

 

[LakevilleBro]

Sorry, I never understood the excitement for BSJ. But I wish him the best.

 

[noamfromm]

Man, he sounds like an HR nightmare. I’m sure Nagy will have some character issues to spread now if he didn’t before...

I think the invite to the Senior bowl dismisses any and all claims regarding poor character

 

[hungan1]

We need more players drafted this upcoming draft. Other than Bateman, who else are draft eligible?

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Sorry, I never understood the excitement for BSJ. But I wish him the best.

I think this is a little bit of the issue with some really good (but not GREAT LT). They get put on an island because they're good and they occasionally get beat. St. Juste is a 6'3" cover corner who more than held his own against Big 10 competition. He wasn't lockdown, but he was good enough that Rossi could keep AWill closer to the line on occassion.

I think he will have a good NFL career. I loved Williamson but I think Williamson was a better college player than a pro player, I think the opposite of St. Juste. He can cover and he's 6'3".

 

[EG#9]

There hasn't been much good news in either Gopher sport I follow recently, but I loved reading the postive reports about St Juste at the Senior Bowl. I was just hoping he would get drafted when he announced he was declaring and now I think the 3rd or 4th round is a possibility. The more guys we get drafted, the better it is for our recruiting. If there is a transfer CB out there late in the process we can point to Williamson and now St Juste as guys who came to Minnesota looking for playing time and ended up leaving as draft picks.