How good is that competition?
Most of Centennials schedule is probably the best in the state. They've been to the playoffs the last two years in a row and been knocked out by Independence (State Champs) in 2015 and Brentwood (made it to semifinals) in 2016.
I'll be interested to see the opinions of other posters on this board who have more experience and perhaps a lot better I than I do. He looks good, but most highlight videos look good. I don't know how to compare him to some of the videos of RBs I've looked at recently. Maybe I'd have to watch the video again more closely. I've looked at Lingard, Camron Davis, the other RB at Carol City, the Maryland kid who stiffed us, a little bit of Noah Cain. All look good, some stand out more than others. How this kid fits in, I don't know. Actually, some of the video highlights I saw of Robert Burns as a sophomore were really good. (Is that the name of the commit who was injured his last two years).
This kid seems to have good vision, finds daylight well, I always try to discern if he's got long speed, i.e., does he pull away from defenders if he gets in the open? This kid seems to fast, but maybe not exceptionally fast. One of the early runs he managed to not get caught by some defenders. A true burner might have pulled away. I don't know that that's all that important. On some other runs he was so far away from defenders it didn't matter. He got to the daylight right away without any problem and that's a positive. You can't do much with long speed if you can't into a position to use it. I looked at some old highlights of the Edge and he didn't seem to have that breakaway speed but he could avoid a lot of tacklers along the way. Even Willis got caught on a long run against FSU.
I'm sure a lot of other posters will have their own opinions and a lot of certitude that they're absolutely right about anything they say.
I just want to avoid the usual claptrap that the only skill position players worth recruiting are from down here. True, we're blessed with disproportionate number of highly talented skill players in south Florida, but that doesn't mean other states don't have them.
The O-O-S RBs we've tried to get over the years include McFarland, or whatever his name is, from here in Maryland, several decades ago, we tried to get Richie Anderson from here in Montgomery County, MD (ended up at PSU, a solid player, went to the NFL, but not exceptional--Art Kehoe was recruiting MD back then and he told me how much he wanted him); didn't we try to get that kid Shady from Pennsylvania (not good at remembering names--he was the kid at prep school with that RB we had from Memphis), Leroy Thompson from Nashville (JJ wanted badly in the '80's, also went to PSU)...and quite a few others. I think back in the '80's, there were really fewer great RBs in south Florida and many had grade/test issues.
I might be all wet, and I don't claim to be an expert, as I said. Let's see what others say.
