William Long is 5-11 and weighs in the neighborhood of 260-pounds. He lifts in competition as a 250-pounder, which is a weight he has no trouble meeting.
He is considered by some, in Kentucky, to be that weight-classes’ all-time powerlifter. It is believed only the coronavirus prevented his breaking most of the classes’ records for that particular weight division when the state championship meet fell victim to the pandemic this past spring.
He has been the AP’s first-team offensive center since his sophomore year. Headed into his senior season, he is ranked the 10-best overall, returning offensive lineman by BGR (Bluegrass Rivals).
Long is the top-rated, returning offensive lineman playing below the Class 4A level. He is Kentucky’s top-rated offensive center.
None of that even factors in his being District 7’s Class 2A, Defensive-MVP (Jackson Times-Voice), in 2019. The NG had 90-tackles, 21TFLs, 3FFs, 2FRs, and a QB-sack fighting through double and even triple teams all season. Every single college team recruiting him, except for one, (UTMartin) sees him playing in college as an interior defensive lineman.
William Long is drawing quite a bit of recruiting attention, as one might expect, having 7 present offers for his next-level services going into his senior season. There are several other schools circling, sure to offer; though exactly when is anyone’s guess.
They would be wise to hurry it along a little. William Long has announced he will pick his college home on his father’s birthday, August 2, 2020.
Unlike other Kentucky prospects, this prospect is drawing quite a bit of attention from Canada. The University of British Columbia is heating up its recruiting efforts. It’s head football coach actually tweeted out about William Long, yesterday, referring to Long as a BlueChip Kentucky DT on the popular social media cite.
This would be a huge recruiting violation stateside, under NCAA-rules. However, UBC isn’t governed by those constraints.
We suppose when you are a college football program in Canada, and the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is a proud 1994-graduate of the school, maybe you have the rule of the roost. Who knows? The discussion is an “academic one,” the Canadian school has done nothing wrong.
The University of British Columbia football program has won Canada’s version of its national college football championship, the Vanier Cup, 4-times (1982, 1996, 1997, and 2015) while playing for it twice more (1978, 1987). They have won the CWUAA conference 14-Times, according to an article written by the Sports Staff of the Jackson Times-Voice online.
The conference represents teams from all over the western-side of Canada. The conference award is called the “Hardy Trophy.”
Canada has a version of the Heisman Trophy too. It is called the Hec Crighton Trophy. UBC has three former Thunderbirds who have won it.
UBC has had literally hundreds of players drafted by the CFL (Canadian Football League). Five former-Thunderbirds were drafted number-one overall in the CFL draft.
Now William Long tells KPGFootball he awakened this morning (June 13, 2020) to find another Canadian suitor has joined his growing list of college programs recruiting him. This morning Long learned Coach Taylor Summers, the Defensive Coordinator for SFU (Simon Fraser University), has joined the fray.
As we sit here today, we can’t tell you whether William Long is SFU’s only Kentucky target. We can tell you Long is UBC’s only Kentucky target, not only in the 2021-class but, maybe, ever.
We can tell you this because of a message sent William Long, last night, after his interview aired on WYMT. William got an email from Coach Blake Nill, the head man for the Thunderbirds containing lots of information about how the recruitment would proceed going forward.
In that email, Coach Nill told Long, “Our school draws a lot of international attention but I don’t think we have ever had a recruit(ing) opportunity from the state of Kentucky.” KPGFootball supposes that would make William Long sort of a trailblazer.
He’s been so many other things in what has amounted to one of Kentucky’s more storied high school football careers. Why not end up a trailblazer too?
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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