Tre Turner Scouting Report: 2022 NFL Draft Profile

 

Wide Receiver, Virginia Tech Hokies #11

 

Tre Turner Measurements

6’2” / 190 lb

40 time: Projected 4.41-4.44

 

Tre Turner NFL Draft Player Profile

 

High School

Tre played both football and basketball at Northwest Guilford High School in North Carolina. Turner was a two-time HSXtra.com All-Area honoree as a wide receiver. Before his senior season, he was selected to preseason All-State by The Charlotte Observer. He missed the second half of his senior season due to an injury to his shoulder. Still, he managed to collect 567 yards and six touchdowns for the season. He would finish his high school career with 123 catches, for 2,614 yards and 31 touchdowns. With a composite score of 0.9273 he earned a four-star rating from 247Sports.

 

Virginia Tech

Turner had offers from five schools total, but decided on Virginia Tech. He would contribute right away once he got to Blacksburg. During his freshman season, he would play in 12 games while making five starts. He would finish third on the team with 535 yards receiving and four touchdowns. Tre would add an additional 101 yards rushing and a touchdown. He would see his playing time increase as a sophomore. That season he would become a full-time starter, starting in 11 games for the Hokies. Turner would amass his first 100-yard receiving game of his career during the season. Overall, he finished with 553 yards and four touchdowns on 34 receptions. He would also carry the ball 24 times for an additional 231 yards and a touchdown.

2020 would see him start in 10 games for Virginia Tech. He would collect 34 receptions for 529 yards and three touchdowns. After the season, he would be named to PFF’s All-ACC second team.

This season he would start 10 of the Hokies 12 games. Tre would bring down 40 catches for a team leading 675 yards and three touchdowns. His 134 career receptions for Virginia Tech ranks him 5^th all-time in the school’s history. He also ranks 5^th in career receiving yards (2,292) in school history. The Hokies finished the season 6-6 and will play Maryland in the New Era PinStripe Bowl.

 

Tre Turner Strengths

 

Hands

Turner does fantastic job of catching the ball with his hands, away from his body. Throughout all the game footage I watched, I only saw him drop one pass. In fact, based on my tracking, Tre has an 84% catch rate. This is adjusted for targets that ended up being uncatchable. So any quarterback throwing the ball towards Turner will feel good about the chances of it being caught. I believe that he’ll make a nice security blanket for someone.

Route Tree

The first few snaps I saw of Tre, I was already convinced that he was going to be a gadget guy. By that I mean someone that the Hokies just used for misdirection or as a decoy. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he actually has quite a route tree that he can run. Over all the games I watched of Turner, I tracked a total of nine different routes. I did track that 73% of the routes were split between go/fly routes, curls, or jet motion. It’s still nice to see that Tre isn’t dependent on just a single route or two for success.

Strength

While Turner has good height, he’s on the leaner side at just 190 pounds. However, he was a tough player for defenders to bring down. There were multiple times I saw him able to shake off a would-be tackler directly after the catch. Other times it would take two or three defenders just to take him out of bounds, let alone get him on the ground.

Tre Turner Weaknesses

Separation

I don’t think I ever got a chance to see Turner run at full speed during my study on him. Still, based his acceleration, I would expect him to be on the faster side. With this in mind, it was disappointing that I didn’t see him get more separation from defensive backs. I can only remember a couple of times where he managed to get separation. One was a beautifully ran route where the defensive back bit on a hitch and go. The other was a blown coverage. I would have liked to see more from someone to be as quick as I believe Tre is.

Evasiveness

While I mentioned that he was tough to bring down earlier, Tre isn’t exactly going to make many defender miss in the open field. He doesn’t seem to have that quick twitch that you need to make sharp, sudden cuts. Instead, he tends to round cuts. If he wants to make a sudden change of direction, he has to slow down gradually to do so. On many of the jet sweeps, he would attempt to cut back, but because he had to slow down to do it, the trailing defenders would catch up from behind for the tackle.

Tre Turner Draft Stock

When you check out NFL Mock Draft Database, they show that Turner started the season ranked pretty high in mock drafts. In fact, in September, he was ranked as the 24^th best prospect based on mocks. Ever since November, his draft stock has fallen a considerable amount. This was around the time that he suffered an injury and missed a couple of games. Tre has decided to opt out of Virginia Tech’s bowl game, and will instead focus on the upcoming Senior Bowl. If he puts on a good show, he could find himself climbing back up the rankings.

Final Thoughts on Tre Turner Scouting Report

There are a good bit of things to like about Tre Turner’s game. However, the things that raise caution for me hold more weight. Turner is a dependable receiver that can be used in many ways. However, he had a sports hernia in 2020 and then dealt with plantar fasciitis all this season. Then he had this weird upper body injury against Georgia Tech that made it hard for him to breathe. It was concerning enough that he wasn’t able to fly with his teammates to the Miami (FL) game. Instead, he had to be driven because the team was worried flying could make it worse. So suddenly injuries are a concern.

On top of that, I don’t feel like he’s a game changer. I feel like he would make a nice #2 or 3 wide receiver within a team’s wide receiver room. For that reason, I have a Day 3 grade on him. I personally don’t think I would start to consider him under the 5^th round or later.

Pro Comparison: Marvin Jones Jr.

Tre Turner Draft Prospect Report / Scouting Report by Brandon Claburn