Jared Cohen
The most sought after player in the state of Arizona right now and for the rest of the year until he makes his college choice is Christian Kirk. But did you know the prospect that is getting the most attention in this state and has colleges lining up to see him isn’t in high school?
Jevonte Domond is a 6-6, 300 pound right tackle out at Glendale Community College coming off a freshman season that put together jaw dropping film that had division I college coaches drooling kind of like in the movie ‘The Blind Side.’ Domond went to high school at Maricopa but only played half of his senior season. That was the extent of his football experience before he first stepped foot in Glendale. Since, he has taken his game to a whole new level.
There are schools coming from everywhere to see him play while the Gauchos are participating in spring practice. Arizona came out on Tuesday, ASU today (Wednesday), Oklahoma is coming out on Friday, Wisconsin on Saturday and LSU on Tuesday. Schools like Wisconsin and LSU always pride themselves on the talent they posses in the trenches, so the fact that those two are interested to fly across the country, tells you all you need to know.
Domond currently holds offers from Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Marshall, Kansas, San Diego State and Miami.
While Arizona State is trying to make headway on landing a player like Domond, they are really making a big splash in landing very solid players locally as walk-ons. Todd Graham has used Kevin Ozier as the example since he first took over as a head coach mentioning that he wants to build a strong walk-on base with players that can eventually earn scholarships and significant playing time moving forward.
The latest person he is using as an example is Frederick Gammage who joined the Sun Devils out of Brophy as a walk-on and receiving significant playing time during spurts of their 2013 season. Last year, they also brought in two very good AZ players in running back Jarek Hilgers out of Desert Vista and Danny Groebner from Blue Ridge.
There is the feeling that ASU struggled to keep local players in state with the 2014 class. Yes they only brought in two even though those three in particular in Quinn Bailey, Ismael Murphy-Richardson and Tyler Whiley are very talented. But what the Sun Devils have been able to bring in from a local stand point from a walk-on perspective has been very impressive. Some of the names that are passing up scholarships at smaller division I or II programs to walk on at ASU consist of Notre Dame Prep safety Jordan Schlueter (turned away scholarship offers from Yale, New Mexico State, New Mexico, Nevada, UTEP, Air Force, BYU, San Jose St, and Colorado State), Pinnacle running back Josh Hoekstra (had offers from San Diego, Penn and Arizona Christian) and Mountain Pointe defensive end and long snapper Mitchell Fraboni.
Players like this were one of the main reasons why the 2014 class was so incredible in Arizona. It was deep and very talented. These three are also very smart. All of which were included in the Sports360AZ All-Academic football teams and in fact, Fraboni and Schlueter made first team. So they have the ability to earn academic scholarships if need be from the university and still be able to play on the team as well.
It is as Todd Graham likes to put it, “a great foundation” for what they want to build depth-wise for the program moving forward that they are able to pry players like this away and bring them into the program as walk-ons.
Finally, Sports360AZ made their way out to Poston Butte this week to catch up with their new coach, Paul Moro. The long time Blue Ridge coaching legend has new scenery and is about to begin spring practice at the beginning of next month. For those of you out there that would love to see him take on Blue Ridge in the future, we were told that he is not going to let that happen. Expect more from Moro on his new position in the valley in the next few days on Sports360AZ.com
