At KPGFootball, one can never say we let any moss grow under the stone, so to speak. We have been all over DE, Kaden Briggs, who is just now an 8th grader, for some time.
We first wrote about the big fella on June 19, 2018. After identifying him as one to watch in that article, we went on to select him to our middle school all-state football team on October 31st and then defended his selection in an article published November 1st, both in 2018.
He has been a fixture on Teams Kentucky from FBU to Future Stars and was one of the defensive stars for Team Kentucky in its win over Tennessee a year ago, 31-28, in overtime at Georgetown College. We came out with a top-20 football players for the Class of 2023 on August 1, 2018 and ranked him the third best player in the entire commonwealth of Kentucky in his graduating class.
Kaden is so athletic and fast that he has played at both DE and RB for teams in Louisville but has played for Team Kentucky exclusively at DE. We expect him to be deployed again at DE when Team Kentucky rolls into Fortera Stadium to take on its Tennessee counterpart. If Tennessee has any memory at all, it will instruct its QBs to find “numba9” when bringing the team to the line and make sure to remain aware of his presence at all times. That would seem a wise strategy to KPGFootball.
What a coach is getting in Kaden Briggs is a freakishly explosive, fast, and powerful DE who already possesses the frame, power, explosion, and speed to be an immediate Friday-night football star. Kaden has registered 40-yard sprint times in the extremely low 5’s, already bench presses 225-pounds, already back-squats four plates (405-pounds), and is now 6-2 and weighs a robust 230-pounds. Last year, at this time, he was a 6-0, 190-pounder playing DE, so his physical development has been quite startling.
As we have before reported about this prospect, Kaden uses his hands well to shed defenders and scrapes down the line and makes plays with upper-level ability. He has the speed to both play flat and get to the bubble and slip screens and to run the sweep into the boundary or just close-out and tackle it in the offensive backfield before it can reach the corner.
Kaden is flexible and has really good “bend” enabling him to dip his shoulder underneath a tackle’s hands and get upfield to rush QBs. This puts young QBs in quite a quandary as they find themselves left with the unenviable position of either being flushed from the safety of the pocket or just getting sacked or drilled while attempting to release the ball.
We don’t know exactly when we will update the top-20, Class of 2023 list; but we know we will, so join now. List is forthcoming. What we may not “know,” but certainly do “suspect,” and confidently is @kadennumba9 may be numba9 on the field, but he will be assigned a numba much higher than that when the new list is released.
This is F.W. Long (#Brotherhood) reporting for KPGFootball reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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