Emeka Megwa, 2022 4* RB, Keller (Timber Creek), TX (COMMITTED)

Tequilla said:

In Texas, you have two primary high school "organizations" ...

UIL = Public schools

TAPPS = Private schools

UIL is the big shot in Texas and runs up to 6A in terms of leagues ... the biggest leagues you're talking of school enrollments of 5,000+.

TAPPS with the private schools are generally not viewed as comparable to the UIL. It's not uncommon that you'll find college players out of there but it's probably more tied to other sports than the "revenue driver sports."

What you don't get in Texas is the mix of public/private schools like you have in Washington. In Washington high schools, you get the private schools like O'Dea, Eastside Catholic, etc. that are recruiting and the athletic programs at those schools are often some of the best in the state. In Texas, it's the high schools that are recruiting, the funding in the public high schools are quite good, and if you're a major prospect you're playing for a public school.

All of that helps to explain why we're in a good position for Megwa. If you look at his highlights, you can see that he was playing for Nolan Catholic, which is in the high division of TAPPS. Nolan Catholic made it to the State Championship game and lost to Parish Episcopal from Dallas (who they had beat earlier in the season).

In the thread here, it appears as if he's going to spend his Senior season with Keller Timber Creek. I know this area very well. It's a 6A district and is in the same district as perennial Texas HS power Southlake Carroll. Without knowing particulars, I would suspect that the family has lived in Keller and the daily drive to/from home to Ft Worth where Nolan Catholic is located is probably a bit of a pain in the ass (20 minutes each way without traffic, but with daily traffic probably looking at closer to 30-45 minutes each way). The other obviously is to play against high end high school competition and potentially get better exposure for recruiting.

All of that comes back to the question of "how did we get lucky here" ...

As I've noted before, the way that Texas recruiting tends to operate, there is a significant bias to 6A players and depending on the district 5A players are considered. Because there is such a quantity of elite programs recruiting the state, rarely do they need to "go slumming" at the lower levels for talent in the state. In particular, your next tier programs like TCU has had a lot of success over the years recruiting a bit at the lower levels that either were being under recruited or players that needed positional switches/development at the college level (it's not uncommon that you'll find HS QBs at lower levels translate into RBs, WRs, or even DEs in college). That doesn't mean that these types of programs aren't able to recruit at the higher levels, but they aren't going to win a large % of those battles

If you look at what UW has been doing in Texas and in particular how they've been making in roads, they've been getting success by getting into that next tier of player where they are able to identify the player that the major programs are missing. When we recruited Sunday for instance, I noted that his HS in Waco was a 4A school which almost entirely is going to get ignored by most of the key in-state programs and other top programs.

From my perspective, when I look at the offer list of Megwa, I see a similar situation. Notre Dame being somewhat involved makes sense given the Catholic tie-in. However, the ND "brand" will expect that they're able to land a more proven RB prospect as for better or worse, there's probably a bit of an unknown given competition levels. Another way to think about it would be to think about the NFL Draft and how there are always questions about players coming from the lower level and how they'll be able to translate to the NFL level.

But in the end, when you look at the offers that he has, my guess is that you're seeing the bigger programs viewing him as a backup/follow prospect and those for who he's a take at this point probably fall in the category of mediocre. We're most likely the only program that combines being a take with being a conference championship caliber program. In a nutshell, beyond other reasons that UW is attractive as a school to a recruit, UW is probably the best on-field program that he's going to get to be able to commit to. Is it possible that he's able to get one of the bigger schools to come back in towards the end if they have a need? Possible. But I suspect that he's evaluated the situation around him and wants to go where he's wanted versus being a backup plan.

Finally, there's probably a legitimate question that can be made regarding UW's recruiting strategy ... notably how can we expect to compete with the top programs if we're not able to get the players that they are. It's a fair question. I think it's also very clear at this point though that UW's ability to win direct recruiting battles against those programs is more of an exception than the rule. In light of that, we can either waste our time trying to do the same thing over and over with the same results or try something different. What we do know as a program is that we're very good at identifying prospects that have an opportunity to develop over their college careers and find themselves in the NFL. A player like Megwa is a good example of this as the comments of comparing him to Gaskin in his film is a good one. A player like Gaskin isn't going to wow the big programs in recruiting but there's no question that he's capable of playing on that field.

Anyway, that's a TL, DR way of saying that Megwa's a very nice looking player, would be a great get for UW, and is a great example of how players can fall through the cracks a bit when it comes to recruiting.

Swaye said:

Our best recruits last cycle came out of the portal. I think if Lake can put together even 80% of the quality of Pete classes, and supplement it with a couple real studs out of the portal each year we will be in good shape.