Before writing this piece, we talked to another prospect’s father whose son is also a Class of 2022 football prospect though not quite as well thought of as Anthony Johns. The other father expressed to us a certain frustration his son hasn’t been offered yet and told us he was assured if his son could get his first offer, many more would follow.
Well, we can’t say for sure about the other kid but the fact Anthony Johns should snag an early offer seems elementary to us. If there is a kid in the entire 2022 graduating class who appears certain of attaining future football stardom, it would appear to KPGFootball that Johns’ future stardom is etched somewhere in stone. Frankly, with the freshman-rising sophomores they have trotting around the Lexington Christian program, the same could be said of several of them. Then it occurred to me many of you aren’t clued into the fact that many of these early offersare completely meaningless.
First of all, the national pundits who track such things have guesstimated that, at a minimum, 6 of 10 pronouncements on a social media platform thanking Such-and-Such University for extending an offer are contrived. If one should want, one can get on Twitter, right now, and thank Alabama for its offer and talk about how humbled and blessed one is. Alabama isn’t going to call you out on it. In two years, they may want you in an upcoming singing class. If they outed you, and caused you any embarrassment, you might retain hard feelings and spurn them for a more discreet rival.
Going into the last signing period there were individual programs reporting over 200 outstanding offers extended as of “signing-day.” KPGFootball is pretty sure the NCAA wasn’t going to allow any member institution to sign 200 players. We’re quite sure we have read somewhere schools are limited to 25 per class.
So there are two things we want all freshmen to remember. First, your friends who are reporting being offered haven’t been in (at least) 6 out of 10 cases. Secondly, the ones who have been offered were made an offer on-which the school likely indicated they would hold-off on permitting the prospect to accept, which makes that offer…not an offer. Basically, keep going out there and kicking-butt and it will happen for you when it happens. It doesn’t matter when you are offered only If you are offered. Anthony Johns, and freshmen like him who work as hard and are as good as he, will be offered. We may not know when but there really isn’t an if.
Why are we so confident about Anthony Johns? Well, in basically his first offseason with the varsity’s strength, speed, and conditioning program, Johns is showing marked improvement in all areas. Anthony, who is 6-2 and weighs 244 pounds (and still growing) is bench-pressing 240-pounds, squatting 375, and pulling 480-pounds while completing his freshman year in high school. Johns has been to some combines, like the Best of the Midwest, where he has run the 40-yard sprint in 5.2 seconds, registered a 4.7 second, pro-agility shuttle, broad-jumped 101 inches (8’5″), and recorded a 30-inch vertical.
Anthony, like few offensive linemen who have gone before him, will enter his sophomore season having never watched a high school game from the sidelines. This KPGFootball All-Stater was in Lexington Christian’s starting varsity lineup from his very first game (as a freshman) through LCA’s 13th which was played in Somerset, Kentucky for the Regional Championship.
For that other prospect’s father, and all father’s who may feel they are in the same boat, don’t worry about your son. Freshmen like Anthony Johns are on radars right now and schools know exactly who they are. When it is time, they will beat a path to your door.
Frankly, if you are charged with recruiting the commonwealth of Kentucky for a college which fields a football team, and you don’t know who Anthony Johns and freshmen like him are, that casts a poorer reflection on your diligence and skills in evaluating talent than any reflection it casts on players like Anthony Johns. The school in question, assuming it exists anywhere other than in this hypothetical, may be in need of assigning a new guy to recruit the Bluegrass.
Reporting for KPGFootball, this is F.W. Long, reminding all of you ballers out there to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE.
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