Yesterday in White Sulphur Springs, WV, the nation’s elite football prospects converged on what is one of the nation’s premier resorts, The Greenbrier. The resort is the mini-camp home of the Houston Texans of the NFL so the amenities, weight-room, fields, and even the stands were NFL-type of pristine.
What wasn’t ideal, and something over which the staff of the Appalachia Prep Combine (APC) could exercise zero amount of control, was the unbelievably strong head-wind into which some of the participants were made to run 40s. This was more true for the 40s run in the morning than the 40s run in the afternoon as the wind died down some as the day advanced. Unfortunately, most of the 40s on which we would normally report were run into the intermittent and incredibly hard head-wind.
Some of the times were impacted, some weren’t. For those whose forties were impacted, we won’t report the number without making note of the condition. It wouldn’t be appropriate to report a wind-assisted time without including it was “wind-assisted;” therefore, it is equally inappropriate to report a wind-resisted one without making note of it. For those who ran 40s we know to be consistent with other combine work, or which were impressive when taken into account, we will report those, while still reflecting the wind’s impact.
Here are a few of our impressions from yesterday regarding the Kentucky prospects in attendance…
There’s almost a point with Owensboro Senior High’s Austin Gough (6-1, 218) when you have to say, what more can we possibly say! Austin really passes the eye-test and easily. Pretty obvious this kid loves the gym.
The focus on his prowess with the weights was on full display yesterday as Gough repped the 185-pounds on the bench-press 21 times. In addition to this, Gough broad jumped 109 inches, ran a 4.8 second 40 into an incredibly strong head-wind, shuttled in 4.45 seconds, and exhibited incredible balance and foot-work in the drills.
During the one on ones he only got 4 repetitions but all four were dominating. We thought he could have won the MVP of the linebacker group and would have had we been selecting. He solidified every word about him we have ever written. Gough is a Class of 2021 prospect with FBS level college football in his future if he chooses.
Darrian Bell from Danville High School showed yesterday his being one of the leading tacklers in Kentucky high school football is certainly no fluke. This manimal measured at 6-0 and weighed 217 pounds. If we are being frank, Bell had the kind of performance which showed us KPGFootball has been ranking this cat way too low in our top-2020’s “top-players’ listings” and he’s in our top-30. This guy is a top-ten, Class of 2020, Kentucky football player.
Darrian had a broad jump of 102-inches with a mid-fours shuttle and a high-fours to low fives 40-yard dash which we are reporting because we found it impressive in light of the head-wind. This is a kid that in better running conditions is a 4.75-4.83-second, 40 kind of athlete. Bell registered 23-repetitions on the bench-press, at 185-pounds, and really repped it 26 times but had three discounted for the judge’s claim he didn’t bring the disputed reps high-enough. The judging criteria was as varied at the APC as there were number of judge’s judging the exercise. The three disputed reps or similar reps were given athletes at many of the other stations all afternoon, but oh well, no one nor no combine can ever be perfect.
Bell was just as impressive in drills as Gough and Bell’s footwork, agility, and athleticism were all raved about all over the combine. In the limited opportunities provided Bell, he was equally dominant in his one on ones.
Ethan Mills, Class of 2021, Barbourville, Kentucky is a running-back about whom the secret is out that he is one of our favorite football players. What’s not to like about a kid who gained from scrimmage, in 2018, around 1,500 yards at running-back and led his team to its first Regional Championship and berth in the KY-semis in route to a 10-4 finish. Mills is a kid whose model-good looks disguise someone who is tough as nails.
Yesterday at the APC, Mills put on quite an impressive performance. This is a 40-time we didn’t get; but, frankly, at his size and running into some of the strongest wind gusts on the day, would have been a time sufficiently impacted by the conditions to result in our not reporting it anyway. Ethan Mills has been consistently timed, at every combine he has ever attended, a 4.5-4.6-second sprinter.
Of course, there are other physical attributes we know relate to running speed. For instance, this prospect, who measures in the 5-6 to 5-7 range and weighed between 150-160-pounds at the combine, broad-jumped 97-inches. Folks, that is called being explosive and it directly relates to running speed. Mills also recorded a blistering, 4.16-second, short-shuttle. A time like that tells one quite a bit about his athleticism and change-of-direction speed. This is a running-back who is hard to corral even were you to find him in a phone-booth (not that anyone is old enough to even know what that is anymore).
What surprised us most was his power and strength in light of his size. His 11 repetitions at 185-pounds, taken together with his stature, we believed to be quite impressive.
Mills dominated in the one-on-ones, and the drills, putting his deft footwork and football skill-set on full display for the APC evaluators. We are quite sure a few college scouts yesterday left the combine impressed Ethan Mills would look good in their future back-field upon his graduation from high school.
William Long was officially measured in at 5-10 and weighed in at 255-pounds. Anyone who has ever attended a ratings service’s combine will tell you the service is much more likely to measure a prospect shorter than taller.
For instance, Darrian Bell is really 6-1.5 as opposed to the 6-0 they measured him and Austin Gough is every bit 6-2 if not even taller and they had him at 6-1. Another thing is William never seems to stand tall for photographs like so many other players as he really doesn’t care what height he appears.
So why make a big deal about it? Well, we only do it because it appears many of you do. We swear, some of you out there obsess over William’s height like he’s a little person or something. Well, at a combine where we had nothing to do with the measurement, he was officially measured 5’10” tall. That’s all we are going to say about that, as Forrest Gump would say.
For all the talk about his height, nothing else about this Class of 2021 prospect is ever discounted. In fact, he is way more athletic than people expect. One of the coaches who assisted the testing at the APC, Coach Darell Keith of Todd County Central HS, sent me the following about William…
“I was impressed with the Kentucky talent. As an evaluator at the combine, William Long really stood out to me and caught the attention of many of us. We, as a group, were convinced he could be deployed many places other than the defensive line even though that is where he worked out yesterday.”
“We would have liked to have seen him offensively at H-back or full-back, and also would have liked to have seen him catch the football. We will watch him this upcoming season to see how this extraordinarily powerful, explosive, quick, and deceptively fast athlete is deployed by his high school coaches.”
William ran a 5.37-second, 40-yard dash into a strong wind, which impressed us on what was an abnormally slow-day. As for change of direction speed and overall athleticism, William short-shuttled in 4.60-seconds, which resulted in the coach timing him exclaiming, “Dang, this big kid can move!”
He broad-jumped 87-inches and repped 185-pounds, 26-times on the bench-press. William was very disappointed with his reps at 185, as he bench presses 405-pounds, but he injured himself the week before the Kentucky Powerlifting Championships, where he won his second consecutive Kentucky State Championship, and he is only 80% or so back from injury.
William’s footwork in the drills was elite and he took over the leadership role for the defensive linemen at the combine, breaking them down and encouraging the performance of each and every one of his line mates. William was an unstoppable, penetrating force in his one one ones and managed to get 7 opportunities as coaches kept putting him up in line to get additional looks at his quick get-off, violent hands, and powerful insurgence into the offense’s backfield.
Jackson Hensley (Class of 2020), from Pikeville High School, could have won the overall MVP of the combine in our humble opinion. We knew coming in that he was just an incredible athlete, and the recruiting attention he is presently drawing is supporting that premise, but he may be Kentucky’s premier athlete. Hensley clipped a 4.5-second 40, had a combine-best 3.9-second short shuttle, and repped 185-pounds 11 or 12 times, we aren’t for sure but it was very respectable for a prospect working at the positions where he was slotted.
Ethan Wolford (Class of 2020), who is 2020’s top-rated center prospect in Kentucky, and racking up offers all the time (three this weekend alone), impressed us with his performance. The 6-2, 280-pounder who is admittedly much more proficient at run-blocking than pass-protection, ran a 5.6-second 40-yard dash and short-shuttled around 5-flat. Wolford repped his 185-pounds on the bench-press 21 times exhibiting impressive upper-body strength (300-pound bench-presser) to go along with his perfect frame for where he is most likely to play in college. Wolford is a heavy lean to join the Yellow Jackets in Charleston, WV next year at WVSU.
Bracken Castle (Class of 2023) from Barbourville, Kentucky was invited in spite of his being only in the 8th grade presently. This was a combine for high school talent and the middle-schoolers were shown no deference for their being young. Castle got three reps at 185-pounds yesterday and, at his stage of development, that is outstanding.
JT Adams (Class of 2023) from Hopkinsville, Kentucky was another middle-school invitee to a camp for high school, junior and senior talent. This guy is rated in the top-two or so prospects in Kentucky’s class of 2023 and has had quite a year. He made All-American in both football and wrestling, won a wrestling State Championship, and was the defensive-MVP of both the Bret Cooper All-American game and last summer’s Tennessee-Kentucky Future Stars game. His performing well should have been a surprise to exactly no-one.
So, we expect a lot from this prospect, who KPGFootball is predicting will start at LB for the Christian County Colonels (5A) next year as a freshman on Friday nights, but we aren’t sure we would have predicted this performance. JT registered a 5.18-second 40 (into the wind), short-shuttled in 4.45-seconds, broad-jumped 98-inches, and repped 185-pounds on the bench-press five times.
We watched him rep on the bench and we figured he was out at 3 reps. The kid, in an impressive display of both strength-endurance and raw will-power, got two additional reps up on some reserve energy pocket he must keep somewhere deep inside.
Joshuah Keith (Class of 2024) will play this upcoming season in Elkton, Kentucky for Todd County Central’s middle school. If he were going into the 9th, instead of 8th, grade, he would be the Rebels’ varsity QB-1.
Joshuah Keith is a middle school All-American QB (Bret Cooper), one of only two 7th graders to gain selection to the KPGFootball, MS, All-State team, and very likely to be on Team Kentucky’s Future Stars team which will play Tennessee this coming summer. We have to keep reminding people he is a seventh grader as evaluators seem to forget it every time he either runs or throws a football.
Joshuah ran a 4.79 second, 40-yard dash that his father conceded to us wasn’t as impacted by the head wind as the morning runs but impacted nevertheless. Joshuah ran a 4.69 second 40 at the Future Stars’ Combine a week ago and we believe that to be his “real” 40-speed. He might be the fastest 7th-grader in Kentucky. There is no dispute he is the quickest and most athletic.
Joshuah Keith, in the short-shuttle, which tests change of direction speed and quickness and which scouts consider a much more accurate test of athleticism than the 40 (which just tests lineal speed) registered a top-three time of 4-flat in the entire combine. Yes folks, that is 4.0-second, 5-10-5. What in the world! Sorry, we digress.
As for his passing, in a combine dominated by nationally ranked signal-callers, it was Keith who kept getting called up to work the receivers who were being graded against the DBs determined to check them. Well, the seventh grader was ruining the day for many a top-rated DB, as he dropped enough dimes out there to constitute about 5-bucks.
Bottom-line, his arm-strength is incredible, his speed is phenomenal, his athleticism is one of a kind. You literally would have no idea this kid was in the 7th grade. He was exceptional and a perfect performance on which to end this article.
Reporting for KPGFootball, this is F.W. Long reminding all of you ballers out there to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE.
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