A 6’6 qb with a noodle arm only has a noodle arm because he has horrible mechanics, and that’s not typically all that hard to significantly improve. The only possible explanation, assuming no physiological impediments is he throws with his arm alone, and likely has poor mechanics there to boot. At 6’6 introducing any body rotation and weight transfer at all would provide more than enough arm strength for any level of football. If he’s also mobile, arm strength on hs tape goes from fairly unimportant to virtually meaningless. College football always has a bunch of physical specimen qb’s who look like they’re using the wrong hand to throw. Arm strength is borderline irrelevant in college football…there’s countless examples to prove that
F Mason West - Fargo Force, USHL (2025 Draft)
- Thread starter Pavel Buchnevich
- Start date
A 6’6 qb with a noodle arm only has a noodle arm because he has horrible mechanics, and that’s not typically all that hard to significantly improve. The only possible explanation, assuming no physiological impediments is he throws with his arm alone, and likely has poor mechanics there to boot. At 6’6 introducing any body rotation and weight transfer at all would provide more than enough arm strength for any level of football. If he’s also mobile, arm strength on hs tape goes from fairly unimportant to virtually meaningless. College football always has a bunch of physical specimen qb’s who look like they’re using the wrong hand to throw. Arm strength is borderline irrelevant in college football…there’s countless examples to prove that
clevelandcane
Registered User
Sounds a lot like Spellacy only I think West is better at the same stage of development.
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
That's like saying a 6'6" hockey player only has a muffin slapper because he is using the wrong mechanics. So much wrong with many of the things you've said in many posts. Arm strength is borderline irrelevant in college?? I mean I guess if he is playing some pop-gun west coast offense or read option, but he is listed as a pro-style QB in the recruiting services...so not some read option kid that will never throw anything into a tight window. Also, yes arm strength is a huge deal if he wants to develop to anything past a backup QB at South Dakota State. Who is the last NFL QB who had a true noodle arm? There are guys with "below average" NFL arms, but most people significantly undersell just how good even that level of arm strength is. If he can't throw the ball across the field with speed on a deep out, then he won't ever sniff any level past backup at Northeast State A&M.
He is a better hockey prospect than QB prospect. He would probably have a chance somewhere to compete, but being a 6'6" QB is not some freak special thing that teams are going to bend over backwards to recruit just based on his size. He's got to have more going on. Football recruiting services are big money these days and they have a good grasp on how a player is perceived, especially at the bigger schools. Nothing about him screams out that he's a guy who is going to make some big leap to a big-time recruit. He's getting softly recruited by some low tier schools. It's possible someone views him as some diamond in the rough and takes him on as a walk on or scholarship player, but getting some NIL pay day is completely farfetched at this point. If he can concentrate on USHL then I agree that is the direction he should go.
Very clearly a better hockey prospect than football. It's not close.
If he was the same caliber of football prospect than he is a hockey prospect, he would be getting massive NIL offers.
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
Funny seeing the great chasm in football versus hockey recruiting simply by looking at West's Twitter: he posts about his football offers but never about his hockey recruiting. NCAA Hockey Recruiting is so private/secretive for some reason, I don't completely get it other than hockey is just a small more private world.
Let's face it, college hockey is small time, barely a faint blip on the national radar, so yeah, it's hard to get attention so why try and make a spectacle of it when few care......
What is very surprising to me however, is that the Gophers aren't in the mix.....seems like things have really cooled off in the twin cities this past year (in terms of recruiting).
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
@Bonin21 will tell ya that Motzko hasn't been aggressive or good enough with recruiting. When Minnesota isn't get many of the top Minnesotans nor aggressively going after good CHLers, they're staring at some problems in the near future.
Could be a NoDak situation with the coaching, minus the locker room problems.
Minnesota (like NoDak) is too good of a program to be down for long, I suspect this is but a hiccup on the way of landing some of the best American talent out there.
UpsideHockey
Registered User
ICYMI, Upside on Mason:
upsidehockey.substack.com
2025 NHL Draft Prospect Profile: Mason West
Upside Hockey's NHL Draft profile series: American Edition, Vol. 35
upsidehockey.substack.com
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
I wonder if a team like the Sharks or Flyers roll the dice and take him with their late 1sts. They could always recover a late 2nd if he doesn't develop well and goes unsigned.
In a draft lacking upside, West certainly has lots. I believe he’ll go in the late 1st round over some of the safer options.
JadedRandom
Registered User
I think you're short-changing this draft a bit.
I actually think the 2025 draft will end up looking more or less "average" as far as drafts go 10, 20 years from now.
That said, I agree with the other part of your post. Mason West should be a slam-dunk to be drafted in the top-40/50 in my opinion.
A guy with West's skating ability, raw skills, physical runway, shot, and puck-protecting abilities will always get drafted high by NHL teams because of how high his upside could be at the NHL level if everything comes together (like it happened for Tage Thompson, who I'd have had as a lesser prospect than West in his draft year).
West is weighed-in at 208 pounds right now (going by Eliteprospects), but with his frame he could easily put on 20 or even 25 pounds of muscle over many years while not losing any speed (instead possibly gaining explosiveness) and end up an absolute physical specimen and pain to play against in the pros.
And that factor gets amplified when it comes to a multi-sport athlete like West, who did not specialize into Hockey until late in this year and could show some "gains" just from a more "Hockey-focused" mindset and training.
Then you add-in the fact that West has shown some enticing off-ice traits (smart kid, burgeoning pro mentality, good work ethic, introspective ability, maturity, etc.) that could mean big-time development for him with more reps and it just starts being a no-brainer that this kid could be a tremendous player in the NHL, enticing GMs and scouts alike.
My analysis of this draft is that I think it will have a lot of NHL players. There are a lot of projectable players with good size and a lot of good skaters. The area that I think this draft falls flat in is upside, and when I reference upside, I mean players that have the skills and intangibles to become legit top half of the lineup players.
I'll agree that this draft will stack up well against other drafts, but I'm not sure there will be a ton of high end players from it. In my eyes, that makes West an easy pick once the first few tiers of players fall away.
Attack Vector
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- Mar 26, 2025
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That would be too high of a reach as at 15. There are going to be guys around that will be solid NHLers, West still has project and a higher busy than what's going to be be at 15.
rocketdan9
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- Feb 5, 2009
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I wouldn't be surprised one sec if this happened.
Even though its a smaller sample - from scout reports/clips I have seen. I like West better than say Lakovic.
Seems like a very low risk of busting, given that he came to the USHL from high school and was contributing right away. 15 OA is right around the spot where higher tier prospects will be gone already.
samsagat
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- Jun 20, 2013
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He's one of the most "mysterious" player of this draft.
With the quantity of small forward available in the 1st round this year, wouldn't surprise me if Mason West would go higher than anticipated.
Even more with him clarifying his intentions of putting all his eggs in hockey basket.
Wouldn't surprise me if he goes between 22 and 32....
With the quantity of small forward available in the 1st round this year, wouldn't surprise me if Mason West would go higher than anticipated.
Even more with him clarifying his intentions of putting all his eggs in hockey basket.
Wouldn't surprise me if he goes between 22 and 32....
Gregor Samsa
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- Sep 5, 2020
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I think the consensus goes out the window somewhere in the 15-20 range. Not a lot of separation from the 20th ranked guy and the 40th ranked guy
My guess is the Wild wants a late 1st for Rossi to draft their Minnesota boy and hopes he becomes another Anders Lee.
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
Probably not. Minnesota tends to do either not draft the best Minnesotans in favor of guys higher on their board, or they draft a meh/middle tier Minnesotan and pass on better talent.
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