TrojanSports - Ja'Kobi Lane's HS coach provides scouting report on WR: 'He can do it all'
See what Ja'Kobi Lane's high school football coach said about the wide receiver's potential at the next level.
USC.rivals.com
MESA, Ariz. -- Red Mountain High School football coach Kyle Enders doesn't think most people see the full picture when it comes to three-star wide receiver Ja'Kobi Lane, but USC did, he says.
That's why he never felt there was any doubt Lane would ultimately sign with the Trojans, as he did Wednesday on National Signing Day, even as Lane took his recruitment down to the wire.
"I knew it was going to always be USC. Just from the stuff behind the scenes ... USC did a phenomenal job. They set the standard of what recruiting looks like, in my opinion," Enders told TrojanSports.com. "We have everybody walk through the door, but they know this kid like I know him, and I've known him since he was in sixth, seventh grade. They know the good, the bad and the ugly and what they're working with. There's no secrets. And they loved him more and more and more the more they got to know him.
"Through all the ups and the downs of the recruiting process, they've been there [through and through] and stayed true to who they were, and they showed that loyalty. They could go get the next guy. They know how special he is. They recognize that. They came out here and watched him play in a game and went, 'Holy s---.' Again, I stay out of it, but I sat here in the same room with everybody's that come by, and I didn't have a doubt that it was going to be USC."
Before Enders started rattling off all the attributes he believes make Lane one of the most unique talents in this 2023 recruiting class, he addressed head on what he perceives to be one of the knocks he hears about the lanky 6-foot-5, 180-pound receiver.
"One of the so-called knocks people want to talk about is that he's a real lean kid and they think he's not very strong. It doesn't matter how much you push around in the weight room, turn on the film and he's extremely physical. He'll block guys into the track. He could put a whole highlight film together of just some of the blocks he has," Enders said. "You see a lot of long, lean receivers that are jump-ball kids, which that's obviously the highlights. He's a quick-twitch player. Normally, a kid that long isn't real quick-twitch -- doesn't get out of breaks real fast, it takes them a little bit to get going. He's got that, man. He's got stuff you don't see with other players in the entire country, and obviously USC sees that too.
"All those little things like that -- just being extremely physical, quick-twitch, a kid that long could play inside if he wanted to, be able to take a screen to the house, obviously he'll go up and get the ball. He's just completely versatile, extremely versatile. Like I said, he's scratching the surface of what he can be."
Lane caught 65 passes for 823 yards (12.7 avg.) and 11 TDs for Red Mountain in the fall, helping the team reach the 2022 Arizona 6A semifinals. He also went 2-for-3 passing for 96 yards for 2 TDs.
"He can do it all. The kid played DB, and we're in a big 6A conference, he's playing dudes. If we needed him to lock somebody up, he'd be [happy] to go out there. He's a competitor. He's just an overall all-around athlete. He threw touchdown passes this year ... the kid is just an all-around athlete," Enders said. "There's no player in the country like him. There's a lot of tall, long receivers. Like I said, he's routing people up, not just running by them. He's not just out-jumping people. He's winning in the slot, he's winning off the press, he's winning double coverage and he's extremely physical.
"You normally don't see a kid who's 6-6, like, 'Yeah, we should get him on a fly sweep.' You normally see those scat-back type kids [do that]. He's quick, he can make guys miss. He very rarely ever gets tackled by one guy and never gets tackled by the first guy. You could watch game after game after game, and I stand by that. That's huge. He's scratching the surface."
Lane wasn't daunted about joining a loaded USC wide receiver unit that also brings in five-star Zachariah Branch and high four-star Makai Lemon in this class, to join the likes of Mario Williams, Dorian Singer, Brenden Rice, Tahj Washington and so on.
Lane said that daily competition was an appeal to him of signing with USC -- that he'd have that much extra push around him to drive him to maximize his potential.
On the weight matter, Lane thinks that will change quickly once he's on campus.
"Putting on weight is going to be easy for me because I haven't really gotten a chance to get a structured meal plan in every day, so a lot of people on Twitter, they can say whatever they want," he said. "Just realizing once I get into that structure and routine I'm going to thrive and be able to do what I know I can do is all that I need."
Twitter is full of highlights of Lane's acrobatic catches, whether it be from the fall season or 7-on-7, where he consistently dominated last spring.
Enders reiterated that is only part of the full package and that Lane isn't yet close to being the finished product he can be.
"What everybody's seen is just kind of very raw. You get a lot of kids and they're polished -- how much better can they get? Well, I don't know, imagine him 25 pounds heavier and we're talking about Megatron, you know what I mean. We're talking about a freak," Enders said. "USC's got themself an extremely talented, great young man."
