Tre’Davious White, CB, Louisiana State: 2017 NFL Draft Scouting Report

Weaknesses: 

Even though starting cornerbacks in the league include smaller guys like White, I see him as a guy who plays nickel first and then transitions into a boundary cornerback if needed. Although White does play big in crucial moments, he plays small from time to time and gets boxed out while allowing the catch because he is out of position to make the play. His relatively smaller frame can be exposed by bigger receivers.

While White is not a bad tackler for a cornerback, there are many times where he avoids contact if he can. If the ball carrier is away from him, he usually does not get involved and if he does, he tends to take bad angles and gets outrun.

Sometimes, if he gets blocked, White does not impact the play much in run support and can be taken out of the play entirely. In this play vs. Ole Miss in 2015, White is outrun by the ballcarrier who eventually scores a touchdown after he takes a poor angle and does not react quick enough to tackle him, even though he is not really blocked by the opposing wide receiver.

While tackling and run support is not the main job for a cornerback, it can meant the difference between being a starter or backup in the NFL.

White has fluid hips most of the time but sometimes the initial transition is not clean and it puts him out of position from the start in coverage. In press coverage or in man coverage, White is not physical enough to jam the receiver before they create separation. He especially struggles to jam faster or bigger receivers. This often causes him to stumble on his backpedal, which he does from time to time and needs to improve his inconsistency with footwork.

Also, I question his top end speed because once he is beat in man coverage, most of the time he fails to catch up. In this play vs. Notre Dame in 2014, former Notre Dame wide receiver Will Fuller beats White in man coverage relatively easily with his speed and acceleration on the comeback route.

White struggles on the snap and is turned around, exposing a poor backpedal and footwork as he stumbles when he turns around to try to cover Fuller. White’s hips also look stiff in the transition and he could not track Fuller quick enough to make a play on the ball. White could struggle in the NFL against speedy receivers.

He is also occasionally soft in zone coverage and while he is a read and react type of cornerback, White does not have the top end speed to get to the receiver and disrupt the pass, in zone coverage especially.

In this play vs. Ole Miss in 2015, former Ole Miss wide receiver Laquon Treadwell uses his excellent route running to sell the route and come back to the ball on a curl route. White plays too soft in the zone coverage and shows the lack of acceleration to defend the pass and does not wrap up and gives up a big “yards after the catch play” AKA “YAC” play. Treadwell is not known for being the fastest guy but uses his route running to get open, so it shows that White can struggle against different types of wide receivers.

He also tends to be too grabby in coverage, panicking and trying to recover from getting initially beat in coverage. Had a couple defensive holding and defensive pass interference calls against him in his career and I saw some that were not called.

White has only six interceptions in 4 years as a starter so I question his ball skills somewhat as he had a lot of pass deflections, but out of the games I watched, the only game where he had an interception was in Wisconsin game in 2016.