Anyone have any intel on this guy? I will certainly be watching him senior bowl week.
Jameson and Metchie (knees and all) are still whom I'd go for, but this is guy is really intriguing to me as soon as I found out he hit 23mph at one point (in line with Jameson at 23mph and Burks 22.6mph). Supposedly ran 4.4 coming out of HS, but I'm taking that with a grain of salt, given his pretty slow 100m/200m times (although those were from his sophomore year of HS before a massive growth spurt). 5'10" 150 as a JR, then 6'2" 175 going into college and now 6'5" 208. Son of an NFL pro (Tim Watson S) who says he's got a high football IQ. The part about loyalty jumped out. Issue with Hands for scouts. Late bloomer for sure. Worried abt prior knee and hamstring injuries. Curious to see what his official 40 time will be, as tall guys
usually have slow starts.
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Inforum
Mike McFeely
By Mike McFeely
January 07, 2022 10:46 AM
FRISCO, Texas — Atif Austin remembers standing in a Florida downpour watching a gangly receiver running good routes, catching everything in sight, sprinting like he was propelled by rockets and thinking, "I hope FBS schools don't find out about this guy."
That guy was Christian Watson, then a junior at Plant High School in Tampa. Austin was the receivers coach at North Dakota State, the program's Florida recruiter, and he'd asked Plant head coach Robert Weiner if there were any under-the-radar players worth looking at, players who could develop with a couple of years of seasoning with the Bison.
It was May and Florida high schools were going through spring practice.
"He said, 'I got a guy,'" remembers Austin, now an assistant coach at Northern Iowa. "He says, 'The kid's grown about four or five inches since school started, put on 20 pounds. He's one to keep an eye on.'"
Watson began his junior year at maybe 5-foot-10, maybe 150 pounds. When Austin saw him in practice, Watson was 6-2 and 175 pounds.
"I'm out there watching practice with some other guys. I'm watching Christian thinking, 'This is a guy I can develop. This is a guy I can work with,'" Austin said. "Then it starts raining. Just pouring. Everybody else leaves and I keep standing there watching Christian going through drills. I was so intrigued I stood in the rain thinking about the possibilities with this kid."
Watson chuckles recalling that day.
"It was raining outside, it was pouring down. It was a tough practice, but typical in Florida," he said. "We were having our practice going through drills with our offense. That day, everything was clicking for me. I was running good routes, I didn't drop a ball all day."
Austin began recruiting Watson, a scholarship offer was made, Watson and his family visited Fargo, the offer was accepted. And so began a voyage that will end with Watson, now a chiseled 6-5 and 210 pounds, getting an opportunity to play in the NFL.
First comes the Football Championship Subdivision title game Saturday, when the Bison take on Montana State. It'll be Watson's last game in an NDSU uniform and there's been no official word he'll play. Watson pulled a hamstring six weeks ago after the regular season and didn't play in the Bison's three previous playoff games.
North Dakota State wide receiver Christian Watson (1) walks into practice with teammates at the Toyota Stadium complex on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Frisco, Texas.David Samson/The Forum
Signals are that Watson will play. He warmed up in uniform before NDSU's semifinal victory against James Madison before spending the game in street clothes on the sideline. Watson practiced Thursday in Frisco.
Even if Watson doesn't play, his career at NDSU was a steady climb from prospect who needed time to develop and mature to dominant receiver and dangerous kickoff returner who's been projected by one NFL Draft analyst to be selected as high as the third or fourth round.
Jim Nagy, executive director of the Senior Bowl all-star game to which Watson has been invited, posted a high compliment on Twitter.
"Had a rival (Missouri Valley Football Conference) head coach tell us that Christian Watson is the best FCS receiver his team has played against since Randy Moss was at Marshall (then DI-AA). Pretty high praise," Nagy wrote.
Not bad for a receiver playing with a program that ran the ball 72% of the time his senior season. In four years at NDSU, Watson's averaged just 25 receptions and 520 yards receiving. This year he has 39 catches for 740 yards and seven touchdowns.
Watson had two kick returns for touchdowns in the FCS spring season, earning first-team All-America.
The potential was always there. Watson's dad Tazim Wajed (formerly known as Tim Watson), played 13 games at safety in the NFL from 1993-97. Watson's brother Tre was a linebacker at Illinois and Maryland and played in the Canadian Football League last season.
But up until NDSU began recruiting him, Watson was an under-sized and little-known high school receiver.
"It was kind of a great story. Up until that point I didn't really have any film from high school. I had a few catches, a few touchdowns. It was a very minuscule amount of snaps I had taken up until that point," Watson said. "I had gotten a lot of hype from my coaches at that point. I was playing for three years so my head coach had been able to see me grow up, see me develop and turn into the athlete I was becoming toward the end of my high school career. He was already kind of seeing the upside of my potential at that point. He had kind of been chatting me up to different schools but I hadn't really talked to too many schools before coach Austin came down."
Watson's dad bristles at suggestions Christian was "raw" when he got to NDSU. Wajed says Watson was underdeveloped when it came to size and strength, but not when it came to technique or football knowledge.
"Christian has been playing football since he was 3 years old. I literally built him from the ground up knowing the game of football," Wajed said. "He's a football player. His football IQ is off the charts. He needed to develop physically at NDSU. Jim Kramer, the strength coach, that's what he needed. Christian was still growing physically when he got to NDSU."
Watson and Bison head coach Matt Entz credit current receivers coach Noah Pauley for much of Watson's growth. Pauley was the third receivers coach Watson had at NDSU in his first three years. Austin left after the 2017 season that Watson redshirted and Jason Ray spent only 2018 at NDSU before leaving with former coach Chris Klieman for Kansas State. Pauley joined the staff in 2019 when Entz became head coach.
Watson said early in his time at NDSU he relied on teammates like Darrius Shepherd and R.J. Urzendowski more than his position coach because of that turnover.
"I definitely leaned on Shep. The guy that Shep is, he's not going to let anyone just get swept underneath the rug. He was dragging us along. Me, Phoenix (Sproles) when he got here the next year," Watson said. "Coach Pauley, now that I've been with him for a few years, the amount of effort and dedication he puts into the program and the receiver group, I think it's really shown in terms of my success and other receivers' success. ... I can't thank coach Pauley enough for what he's done to help me develop as a man, a player, a leader on this football team."
While it's true NDSU was Watson's only offer, other schools became interested during his senior season at Plant High. After he committed to the Bison the summer before his senior year, Watson told his high school coach he didn't want to talk with other colleges.
"I kind of shut things down and my coach really shut things down, too. He would tell me when a school would have some kind of interest in me and then kind of let me make the decision whether I wanted to talk with them," Watson said. "Once I was committed, I was committed."
The same could be said for his time at NDSU. In the age of FBS schools poaching top-level players from FCS, Watson could've entered the transfer portal the last couple of years and likely ended up at a bigger school. Watson's speed and size combination have value at the highest echelons of college football.
"He had no desire whatsoever to do that," Wajed said. "He stayed there. He stayed at North Dakota State. One of Christian's traits is loyalty. He was loyal to NDSU after he committed there. He remained loyal after he was there."
It's worked out. Watson graduated in December and after the title game will return to Fargo for a few days before departing for south Florida, where he will train for the Senior Bowl, NFL Combine and pro days. If there is one question about Watson, it's his hands. He will have to show NFL scouts he's overcome issues from earlier in his career.
There's a chance he could be the next big thing when it comes to FCS-to-NFL receivers. Austin made the comparison to a former Eastern Washington standout well-known to NDSU fans.
"I knew Christian needed to develop and he has. He is exactly the player I envisioned him being," Austin said. "He just needed to get in the NDSU program and develop. He could be like Cooper Kupp when he gets to the NFL, in my opinion."
Kupp is in the discussion for NFL MVP with the Los Angeles Rams this season. That's a long way from a kid who started his junior year of high school at 5-10, 150 pounds.
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Also from Inforum:
“He’s got that long, athletic frame,” Brugler said. “He’s got that gliding speed and those long strides, they just eat up grass. It doesn’t necessarily look like he’s like a track star out there [
note: still got up to about 270 steps per minute in his 100yd TD kickoff return - on par or a pinch higher than Usain Bolt at his peak speed - 264 steps per minute - shorter guys are ~290-305spm], but because those strides are so long and he’s gliding, he’s just running by guys and the corners are not closing the gap. He can accelerate with that build-up speed and then have that pull-away gear.
“Defenders aren’t able to catch him. I think he’s very quarterback friendly. He’ll work back to the ball, he’ll climb the ladder, pull throws down, he’s got a very flexible upper half so he can adjust to those balls outside of his frame.”
Brugler said Watson doesn’t have any glaring holes in his game, but there is room for improvement in multiple areas.
“I think that we’ve seen steady improvement from him as a route runner,” said Brugler, who added Watson's slender frame could also be an area of concern in matchups against physical NFL cornerbacks. “Still a work in progress in terms of being a detailed route runner and doing all the things he needs to do to be a productive pro, but he’s on track. He’s improving and getting better with each year.
“Maybe he dropped more balls than you would like to see, but his hands aren’t a substantial problem at all, just more cleaning up some of the focus issues. There’s nothing about his game that you necessarily think is a detriment, that is going to hold him back, be something that is going to keep him from being a productive pro, but he just needs to work on a few things.
will not be tolerated here 
