Jamie Newberg article, "Best Ive ever seen"

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Who are the bluest of blue chip recruits I have seen over the past two-plus decades?

My first class back in 1992 highlighted a young man from Baton Rouge (La.) Catholic named Warrick Dunn. What a way to start, right? Dunn was the first of so many elite running backs from the state of Louisiana over the years. Remember Travis Minor (Baton Rouge Catholic)? There was also Cecil Collins (Leesville), Anthony Thomas (Winnfield), Joe McKnight (River Ridge John Curtis), Shyrone Carey (New Orleans Shaw) and I am sure I am forgetting a player or two. Just last year our top prospect in the country for Scout.com was from New Orleans St. Augustine, running back Leonard Fournette.

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How fitting it is that my favorite back is from Louisiana? It’s Kevin Faulk. He actually starred at quarterback for Carencro. Simply, Faulk was dazzling with the football in his hands. He was the ultimate weapon in space and simply electric. He went on and had a brilliant career at LSU and was a good player for a long time in New England.

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I will keep it short on tight end. Believe it or not, Glen “Big Baby” Davis was an outstanding football prospect as a tight end, offensive tackle and defensive tackle. Big Baby was just a big athlete. At one time we had him ranked as a top five overall recruit in the nation. If you don’t believe me, check out this film here.

Have you seen a tight end with that kind of size run a bubble screen and do 360-spin moves in the open field? It was a first for me. That video crashed our servers... twice. Davis gave up football to concentrate on basketball his senior season at Baton Rouge University Lab.

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Arguably the greatest player of this generation is Peyton Manning (New Orleans Isidore Newman). To think, I actually sat in studio with him in 1994 on the set of CTSD. Then, Manning won the Bobby Dodd Award given by the Atlanta Touchdown Club over Josh Booty (Shreveport, La./Evangel Christian Academy). It was the high school equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. It never crossed my mind at the time that this tall, skinny kid from New Orleans, who was headed to Knoxville, would become an all-timer.

Manning and Booty started a terrific QB run of recruits, especially in the south. A few years later Tim Couch (Hyden, Ky./Leslie County) and Quincy Carter (Decatur, Ga./S.W. DeKalb) came out the same year in 1996.

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Ryan Perrilloux (LaPlace, La./East St. John), like Carter, was a supreme disappoint because of actions away from the game. Perrilloux was Winston with a better arm, if you can imagine that.

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