McKinley seems bent on going big or going home
Gunnar McKinley has his Centurions in the title chase sitting at 6-0 on the year. The tall, lengthy TE/DE ’23 prospect has the frame college programs crave and the penchant to come up big every time he makes a play.
Fletcher W. Long, KPGFootball Senior Scout
His given name is “Gunnar.” Right off the bat, one has to admire (and even like) the McKinleys.
I wish I could have been named something super cool like “Gunnar.” In stead, my parents seized on “Henry.”
What’s in a name? Doesn’t a rose by any other name smell just as sweet? I have definitely read that somewhere.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet…”
William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”
McKinley, by any name, is a fine football player. McKinley, regardless of what you may call him, plays for one of the best high school programs across the breadth of the commonwealth.
We don’t have any stats entered online from last night’s game with Mercer County. We can tell you the Centurions are now 6-0 on the year having just vanquished one of the 4th-District’s toughest challenges.
CAL finishing 10-0 on the regular season is looking likely. CAL making a deep playoff run appears just as certain.
McKinley is an interesting prospect. We don’t have his exact measurements but would put him in the 6’3″ to 6’4″ range and guess his weight to be in the neighborhood of 210-230.
He has plenty of frame to beef up on the college level and settle in at TE. He could add just a little thickness and come screaming off the defensive edge in college.
From the film on McKinley we have seen, he is effective off the edge using his length to make plays. He squeezes and scrapes down the line of scrimmage well and makes plays along the interior as effectively as he makes plays upfield or toward the boundary.
Here is something additional we can tell you. McKinley is a go big or go home player.
Of the tackles he has registered…McKinley has made nearly 77% of them behind the offensive line of scrimmage.
HB Lyon, KPGFootball Senior Sports Writer
Go big or go home is a philosophy that encourages one to be bold. The phrase is said to have originated as a sales slogan in the 1990s.
A motorcycle parts company in Southern California incorporated the term go big or go home in its packaging for some oversized Harley Davidson pipes. It fits in regard to McKinley’s play this season at least through the first half.
Of the tackles he has registered coming into last night’s game, McKinley has made nearly 77% of them behind the offensive line of scrimmage. Entering the game with Mercer County, McKinley was the club leader in QB-sacks and among the leaders in TFLs.
On offense, McKinley is fifth on the team in both TDs receiving and receiving yards. That is in addition to what he adds to CAL’s downhill run game from scrimmage as the OL’s 6th-member.
McKinley having success this year should have been news to no-one. Let season, as a junior, McKinley made the Greater Louisville Football Coaches (GLFCA) All-District first-team at DL.
McKinley is a prospect which will start being added to team’s boards as soon as these teams discover how to find him. We sure hope this article assists in his being discovered.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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