#25 Josh Minkins Jr
Class: Freshman
Ht/Wt: 6-2/179
Position: Safety
Hometown: Louisville, KY (Product of Ballard High School)
Twitter: @JoshMinkins
Thoughts: Minkins joins the Cards as not only a legacy player (father Josh Minkins Sr played for the Cards from 1999-2004 at DB), but also a local product who has been a Cards fan “his entire life”. Coming out of Ballard Minkins played both sides of the ball for the Bruins, not only roaming the secondary but also playing a little wideout. Roll back about three years and I have no doubt Petrino would have tossed him in the wideout room with the other 37 guys he recruited, but this staff, well, they see a brighter future on the defensive side of the ball.
If you watch his tape Minkins Jr can cover a lot of ground and looks really long when he’s “high balling” a deep throw after the QB goes full tilt. At wideout or at safety he was almost always the one pulling in the catch, which is a good sign of being able to play the ball, no matter which phase of the game he’s playing. At 6-3 he has great size but I was a tad worried about his weight when he came sliding in a biscuit under 180. Well, as of about 10 days ago, I suddenly feel much better about that now…
Came in at 179, already 193 and gaining. S/O to the best strength and conditioning staff in the country!
— JMink (@JoshMinkins) August 8, 2020
Minkins Jr has a legit shot to be hovering around 6-3/200 before we kick off this season and that is pretty incredible. Looking at the summer two deep you have three upperclassmen at the free/strong safety positions, meaning PT will be available this year in a support role and then significant holes will need to be filled in 2021. I like Minkins and Jenkins (Lovie) to be the leaders in the clubhouse for that time moving forward. Here’s some Friday Night Film from JMJ himself.
Sweet Tweet:
Minkins Jr also dabbled a bit in some round ball while in high school (because he is from Louisville) and was a nice piece of the Ballard squad the last few seasons. This post, and then the response from Coach Brown tells me the staff likely takes those mid-day games pretty serious…
Can’t wait to catch you in the gym so I can rain some trey balls in your face!
— Coach Bryan Brown (@CoachB_BROWN) February 9, 2020
#PonceIsDWade