ESPN Recruiting Nation Football

ESPN 150 safety Tray Matthews (Newnan, Ga./Newnan) was the second prospect in the Class of 2013 to commit Georgia, pledging to suit up for the Bulldogs before he even played his junior season. He worked hard after that to help fill out the class, and even though he is enrolled in classes at Georgia, Matthews could still deliver another commit to Georgia.

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The University of Alabama hosted a large group of official visitors over the weekend, both committed and uncommitted, and in some cases, the committed prospects were just as important as those still waiting to make their decision.

One of those examples is ESPN 150 running back Tyren Jones. With speculation surrounding his recruitment, the UA coaching staff wanted to make sure he was still committed and make a good final impression on the Peach State native.

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Alabama is headed to its third national championship in four years after an epic clash with Georgia in the SEC championship.

The instant classic made an impression on the top recruits as well.

ATH Derrick Henry (Yulee, Fla./Yulee): “I thought it was a good game. I thought it was one of the best SEC championships that I’ve seen. Both teams fought to the end, and I love seeing something like that. I love seeing both teams hungry for a win. I thought both teams fought really hard.

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In 1996, former NFL running back Travis Henry was chasing a national single-season record at Frostproof (Fla.) and ripping through the first three rounds of the Class 3A playoffs.

There are some parallels between what Travis Henry did 16 years ago and what Derrick Henry (Yulee, Fla./Yulee) is doing in 2012. While physically they are quite different – Travis Henry was 5-foot-9 and close to 200 pounds while Derrick Henry is roughly 6-3, 248 – they both became larger-than-life figures in small, football-crazy communities.

Frostproof is a community of about 3,000 on the southern edge of Polk County in central Florida. It’s the sort of place where high school football brings everyone together and it seems like a star comes through the area once a decade. Alvin Harper played there in the 80s. USC cornerback Nickell Robey did as well from 2005-2008. The Frostproof Bulldogs have won a couple of football state titles through the years and before the turn of the century they were an automatic lock for the state playoffs.

Travis Henry was different, though. He put a national spotlight on Frostproof as he chased this record held by Ken Hall of Sugar Land, Texas. Most of the time he wasn’t comfortable with the attention placed on the record, his recruitment and his personal life. It was a lot for an 18-year-old to handle. However, there was little doubt of where he was comfortable – the football field – and it was there that his pride for representing Frostproof football shined.

Derrick Henry’s hometown of Yulee is a little bigger with a population of over 11,000, but it’s a little less established in football. The Alabama commit has emerged at a major celebrity in the area just north of Jacksonville. Wherever Henry goes it seems like there’s a pack of fans behind him waiting to cheer his next big run or touchdown.

Much like Travis Henry, Derrick Henry seems a little overwhelmed by the attention, but the coverage of high school football and recruitment has changed so much in 16 years that Derrick Henry has been dealing with the media since he was a freshman. While Derrick Henry might not be comfortable with the attention, he has learned to embrace it like Travis Henry never could.

Both players have eye-popping statistics. Travis Henry finished his senior season with 4,089 yards and 42 touchdowns. Henry has 3,944 yards and 51 touchdowns going into Friday’s playoff game against Jacksonville (Fla.) Bolles.

Travis Henry saved his best performances of his senior year for the playoffs. He rushed for 364 yards and a little more than a half in the 3A quarterfinals against Ransom Everglades. In the state semifinals against Pahokee, he needed all 273 yards and five touchdowns to lift Frostproof to a 45-27 victory. In the 3A championship game against Lake Butler (Fla.) Union County, Travis Henry accounted for 328 rushing yards, 65 receiving yards, four touchdowns and three two-point conversions.

But Union County whipped them 67-30.

The game was pretty much out of reach at halftime and by the third quarter Travis Henry’s chase at the national record looked bleak until Union County quarterback Andrew Zow, who led Alabama to an SEC championship and an Orange Bowl victory in 1999, started throwing deep passes in the second half to run up the score. Finally, on Frostproof’s last possession Travis Henry busted off a 60-yard run that gave him the record – something that he said was no consolation for suffering such a large defeat.

Derrick Henry already has a 400-yard game in the 2012 Class 4A playoffs, his third game this season of 400 yards or more. On Friday he’ll need just 146 yards to pass Travis Henry’s season total and the common thinking is he’ll need another 400-yard game for Yulee to hold off the Bolles machine and advance to the state championship game in Orlando.

Travis Henry chose Tennessee over Alabama, and it was announced when the Frostproof principal told the mayor, who told the local papers. Derrick Henry chose Alabama over Tennessee and Georgia on ESPNU’s "College Football Daily." Travis Henry was part of a BCS championship team in 1998. Derrick Henry will be expected to part of at least one BCS championship team while at Alabama. Travis Henry’s NFL career with the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos was productive at times but ultimately overshadowed by mistakes in his personal life. One can only hope Derrick Henry doesn’t fall into the same traps.

However, if you stop in Frostproof and mention Travis Henry’s name, the first thought that comes to the locals’ mind is their memories of the 1996 season. What Derrick Henry has done in 2012 appears to have left the same long-lasting impression to the people of Yulee.

What I'm reading

• Follow four-star offensive lineman Denver Kirkland (Miami, Fla./Booker T. Washington) for a state title.
• Hosting state playoff games means big dollars for local programs.

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Nick Saban has never had any trouble when it comes to recruiting. But he’s getting a little extra help with the recruitment of five-star offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil.

Ever since ESPN 150 stars Derrick Henry and DeMarcus Walker committed to Alabama at the beginning of the season, they have been doing their part to help lure their friend and fellow Florida native to Tuscaloosa.

Recently, Tunsil visited UA for the Texas A&M game, the same weekend Henry was in town. Henry had already taken his official visit to Alabama earlier in the year, but he spent most of his time talking with Tunsil on this go-around.

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- For Nick Saban, his success started on the recruiting trail, not the football field.

In his first season, the University of Alabama head football coach went 6-6 and guided the Crimson Tide to a berth in the Independence Bowl, the lowly Independence Bowl, where they hung on to defeat Colorado.

Almost immediately, the turnaround began. Saban and his staff put together the No. 3 recruiting class in the country during his first full year. The group featured seven ESPN 150 prospects, five first-round NFL draft picks and included a Heisman Trophy winner.

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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Before the season, Yulee High School head coach Bobby Ramsay never imagined his star running back Derrick Henry would come close to breaking the national rushing record. He thought maybe top five but not the top spot.

After rushing for 455 yards and five touchdowns last week, Henry is just 775 yards away from the record with two regular-season games still to play and at least one playoff game.

“To be at a point where he’s under 800 yards of the national record, it’s really not something we talk about a whole lot,” Ramsay said. “But, it’s kind of like the elephant in the room. None of us are idiots. We can all count.”

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The west coast of Florida is often a forgotten part of the state but the stretch of Interstate 75 from Bradenton down to Naples has been responsible for some of the state’s most exciting performers.

Before Peter Warrick won a BCS championship at Florida State and became a top-5 NFL draft pick he won a state championship at Bradenton (Fla.) Southeast.

Former West Virginia running back Noel Devine, out of North Fort Myers, was one of the first stars of the “YouTube” era and his original highlight reel received well over a million views. The original link is down but the secondary link has over 800,000 views.

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NORCROSS, Ga. -- The Alabama coaches were not joking when they sent ESPN 150 running back Alvin Kamara (Norcross, Ga./Norcross) 105 recruiting letters back in February. In spite of the recent commitment of ESPN 150 athlete Derrick Henry (Yulee, Fla./Yulee) to the Crimson Tide, Nick Saban and Kirby Smart are still pursuing Kamara.

That might surprise plenty of Georgia fans who thought that Henry’s decision would send Kamara, who had named Georgia and Alabama as his leaders, straight to Athens, Ga.

“Coach Smart is out here tonight,” Kamara said. “They are still after me as hard as when it all started. They called me after Derrick committed. Coach Smart and I talked and he said, ‘You know we still want you as bad as we did before.’ Bama puts guys in the NFL and the atmosphere up there is crazy. I love it. I am comfortable when I get into Tuscaloosa.

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As he closes in on a decision, 2014 running back Racean Thomas visited the University of Alabama on Saturday for the Ole Miss game. The trip gave him a chance to talk with the coaching staff and become closer with them.

“It went good,” Thomas said. “I got to talk to a lot of the coaches. They were just really trying to get me down there a lot more to come to a couple more games, really just to get a better feel and develop a better relationship with all of the coaches.

“I already feel pretty close to them. They’re already pretty much like family. They always welcome me in.”

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YULEE, Fla. -- After committing to the Alabama Crimson Tide earlier in the day, four-star running back Derrick Henry capped off his exciting day by helping his Yulee (Fla.) team defeat Kelvin Taylor and his Belle Glade (Fla.) Glades Day team 42-6 on Friday night. The 6-foot-3, 243-pound Henry rushed for 362 yards and six touchdowns on 35 carries.

Henry has amassed 864 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns over the last two weeks and now has 1,753 yards and 24 rushing touchdowns in only five games this season. He has totaled 9,617 rushing yards in his career and is on pace to break Ken Hall's (Sugarland, Texas) national career rushing record of 11,232 yards. If he continues his current pace, Henry will finish the regular season wih 3,506 rushing yards and 48 touchdowns.

In addition to the career rushing record, Henry has his sights set on yet another rushing record. Former NFL player Travis Henry (Frostproof, Fla./Frostproof) holds the single-season rushing record in Florida with 4,087 yards in 14 games. If Yulee (4-1) makes a playoff run, Derrick Henry has a good chance at breaking Travis Henry's record.

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The University of Georgia is recruiting some of the top prospects in the country, and DawgNation takes a look at 10 targets and prospects that had standout performances on the field last week.

Derrick Henry, ATH (Yulee, Fla./Yulee) – The ESPN 150 prospect had 42 carries for 502 yards and six touchdowns in a 45-28 win over Jacksonville (Fla.) Andrew Jackson, breaking the single-game record for rushing yardage in the state of Florida. Henry also passed Emmitt Smith (8,804) for 2nd in career yards in Florida with 9,255. Henry now has 38 straight games with 100 yards rushing or more, one shy of the national record set by 2012 ESPN 150 prospect Rushell Shell, now at Pitt.

Brendan Langley, ATH (Marietta, Ga./Kell) - The ESPN 300 prospect had seven catches for 104 yards, three interceptions, 97 return yards, two touchdowns and a blocked extra point in a 33-29 win over Creekview.

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ESPN 150 athlete Derrick Henry (Yulee, Fla./Yulee) set a Florida state single-game rushing record Friday when the 6-foot-3, 245-pound senior had 502 rushing yards. Yulee head coach Bobby Ramsay has seen Henry have big games before, but Friday's performance in a 45-28 victory over Jacksonville (Fla.) Andrew Jackson was one for the books.

"I was telling someone Saturday that there are a lot of variables that go into having that sort of a performance," Ramsay said. "For one thing the game has to be close enough for him to stay in. There have been situations where he could have probably run for 700 yards, but it wasn't worth the risk of injury.

"And we played a good team. They flipped the field on us several times and that forced us to have long drives and give him plenty of opportunities to gain yardage. We needed the offensive line to be at their best and those guys also gave a quality performance Friday night. They did an excellent job. All in all it was a special night and Derrick is a special player. I'm happy for him; I'm happy that we as a team and a program and a community could share in this moment."

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