Elite 3 is a special cadre of invite-only college football prospects who benefit from Riley Howard, III’s staff of coaches and particularly from Howard’s connections in the college football world. The outfit is defined by Howard as a Nashville based non-profit that works to support disadvantaged youth by promoting three principles: Fitness, Enrichment, and Achievement.
Riley Howard, after playing college football at Tennessee State University, went on to graduate with a Bachelor’s in Human Performance and Sport Science concentrating in Exercise Science. After getting his Bachelor’s, Howard earned a Masters in Education and Sport’s Administration. Since 2008, he has trained and given motivational speeches about his life experiences before and after football to athletes ranging from youth to NFL.
For all of the above reasons, when KPGFootball was invited to check out the Elite 3 Mega-Camp held at Blackman High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and to bring William Long too, it was an opportunity on which neither of us could pass. So KPGFootball went to the Mega Camp and encountered three players whom we regularly cover, bringing a fourth along with us. If you a are a Kentucky High School football fan, as we are, your Kentuckians, and especially how they performed yesterday, would have certainly been a source of pride for you. We know it was for us.
In this article we will break down the performance of the Kentucky boys whom we watched yesterday. We will start with a Kentuckian who is red-hot on the recruiting trail.
Reece Jesse, Jr., Hopkinsville, 6-3, 185-pounds, WR, Class of 2021.
Reece Jesse, Jr. is a guy who has exploded this offseason and his dance card is filling. This will leave a lot of hopeful colleges looking for a landing spot if they don’t rush an offer up to him. William & Mary offered Jesse just yesterday to add to his offer from Tennessee Tech. We are sure recruiters are starting to feel like kids playing musical chairs frantically trying to get to Jesse while there may be a few scant chairs left vacant.
Now the field is pretty crowded with people attempting to take credit for Reece Jesse, Jr.’s rise to prominence in college football recruiting circles. We would like our place at the table as we selected him to our KPGFootball all-state, sophomore football team in 2018, both nominated and voted for him on the AP’s All-State ballot, and have been writing articles about him extolling his abilities since the kid was an 8th grader. As the famous Italian diplomat and Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Caleazzo Ciano, would famously quip, “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” Make no mistake, Jesse’s success and popularity as a highly sought after, Division I, football recruit is attributable to Riley Howard and Elite 3 regardless of whom else would like to be credited.
Jesse was devastating yesterday at the Mega-Camp catching footballs all over the field against both DBs he smoked and DBs who were draped all over him like a cheap suit. The important thing is this 2021 receiver, so explosive he broad jumped 10′ (120-inches), catches the ball in traffic regardless of what the DB may attempt to do to prevent it. That is very important because competing with DBs at Elite 3, all of whom are future college football players, is similar to the DBs he will see playing Division I. They are all fast. There really is no “open.”
Tahj Manning, Hopkinsville, 5-11, 265, NG-DT, Class of 2021.
KPGFootball told Tahj Mannning’s family he would be an all-state caliber football player when he was in middle school. On the eve of beginning his junior year in high school, we haven’t seen anything to dampen our enthusiasm for his prospects.
This 315-pound bench-presser, 450-pound back squatting powerhouse of a rising Junior, with a few more weeks as a 10th grader, has richly benefited from participating in Coach Adam Dowland’s strength program back in Hopkinsville. Yesterday, there were reps where Tahj turned heads and completely smoked the guy in front of him. That is something worthy on which to report as there were no “busters” at the Elite 3 Mega-Camp. Then there were reps where it appeared Tahj may have decided to briefly vacation.
Here’s the bottom line with Tahj Manning: If he gives a consistently hard and diligent effort every snap, he’s as hard to contain as any interior defensive lineman playing high school football anywhere in Kentucky. The important thing for Manning is to increase the revolutions of his inner-motor. When he gains the reputation and/or starts performing like a “high-energy” player with a “non-stop motor,” Tahj will be recruited heavily. He’s only a sophomore, he will figure that out and it will make all the difference with him.
William Long, 5-11, 255, NG-DT, Class of 2021. Frankly too much is made of this prospect’s height and we aren’t going to continue to feed the perception. This will be the last time we mention it going forward. For one thing, Long isn’t anywhere near as short as some of his internet-haters want to claim. Secondly, there isn’t anything else critical of him one can find to say. Long’s fast, super-quick, and possesses elite level power and explosion so it is really the only thing anyone can critique.
Simply put, the kid has attended the Appalachia Prep Combine where he has been selected, preseason, the 8th best D-Lineman in the Appalachia Region; the Blue-Grey All-American Combine, where he was selected one of the Tennessee Regional’s top 4 defensive linemen at that event; and the Elite 3 Tennessee Mega-Camp where he was selected for yesterday’s showcase pitting the top-two DLs against the top 2 OLs. In 2018, William was selected both a KPGFootball sophomore All-Stater and as one of only two sophomores, KY-wide, to make the AP’s (Associate Press) All-State football team (1st Team).
Long bench presses 405, squats 585, power-cleans 260 and has won back to back Kentucky Powerlifting State Championships. Long is one of the most powerful and explosive, quick-twitch monsters along any defensive front in Kentucky coming into the 2019 season in all of high school football, period. Long was played out of position all year in 2018, at offensive center, which he did (without complaint) as that is where that team needed him. Long is just that kind of person.
It seems redundant to say he was impressive at the combine yesterday particularly in the one on ones. After all, he was selected by the defensive line coach as one of his top two DLs to participate in the event’s showcase at the end of the combine. Manning and Long have similar games and similar traits with two exceptions…one, Long plays almost every snap at full-speed and two, Long is so lightening quick he is even more impressive bending around end than he is inside where his frame will most likely have him deployed in college.
In a recent article about Long, the Blue-Grey Staff wrote “No stranger to the setting, the 5-11 and 250-pound sophomore strengthened a growing reputation. He’s destined to play on Saturdays.” Well, Long walked into the Mega-Camp and showed he was no stranger to such events and additionally demonstrated he is destined to play on Saturdays.
Riley Thompson, 6-2, 200-pounds, LB, Graves County, Class of 2020.
We may have saved the best for last here as Riley Thompson figures to be, in 2019, one of Kentucky’s premier LBs certainly in western Kentucky and probably in the entire commonwealth. Thompson’s performance yesterday left no reason for any of those expectations to be the least bit dampened.
In the combine events, Thompson demonstrated superior athletic-ability. He ran a 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds-flat, broad-jumped 9’4″ or 122-inches, completed the L-cone in 7.27 seconds, and short-shuttled in 4.38. This is a linebacker who showed straight line speed and the change of direction quicks to chase down plays, close on stuff in front of him, or play flat into the boundary.
Thompson was equally impressive in the agilities and the one-on-ones and don’t ask us, ask the college scouts who were encircling both his parents and him like scavengers encircle road-kill. Riley Thompson showed himself to be elite which basically means he fit in very well with what was around him yesterday.
We would like to thank the Elite 3 foundation for hosting us and permitting us the privilege of getting to cover the event. The athletes all got excellent instruction and training and plenty of opportunity to apply the skills with which they either arrived or developed under the staff’s instruction at the combine.
This is F.W. Long reporting for KPGFootball reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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