2017 Lexington Ky. Lafayette OT garners three offers in three days
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Three offers were tendered to a member of the Commonwealth's 2017 class. After three coaches visited Lafayette High School within three days, offensive tackle Jedrick Wills knows he won't have to pay for college.
"South Carolina came in on Wednesday and offered." Lafayette head coach Eric Shaw told Kentucky Preps. "Thursday Western (Kentucky) came in, Friday Kentucky came in and offered."
In those three days -- Dec. 3-Dec. 5 -- the big lineman became the most offered prospect of the 2017 in-state class. In fact, he's the only recruit in that class to have obtained a scholarship yet.
"Jedrick has a nice ceiling." his head coach said. "You can't coach 6'5" and 310-pounds"
Wills hasn't made any public comments regarding his budding recruitment. Taking it from Shaw, "He's humble." and it may just be the beginning. "I think it has sparked a fire in him to continue to work and get better. It's not over, it's not done. He still has a lot of work to do and he's willing to put that in."
It's also not a sure thing Wills will hit the camp circuit hard this summer, as many young prospects do to further their recruitment. "Right now, we're concentrated on the offseason." Shaw said. "There's somethings he needs to improve on and we're going to take care of that first and when the summer comes I'm going to give some instruction and we're going to go from there."
This will be a big offseason for the sophomore. He's got the size, the feet and the hips. Although, his game still needs some fine tuning.
"He is a very young kid, still raw and there's still a lot of work to be done." Shaw elaborates. "And we're going to put that in this offseason and get ready for the upcoming year."
Lafayette High certainly has some talent walking through its halls, at this time. And Shaw admits "It's good." but he also believes it's a bit under recruited. "I've been doing this a long time in this area. I moved here in '96 and started coaching in the early 2000's and there's always been D-I kids there. It blew my mind for those type of schools not to come in before now."
Although, with two student-athletes holding SEC offers -- 2016 offensive tackle Landon Young is committed to Kentucky -- the talent level is certainly high within the General football program.
"It's exciting for us." Shaw said. "I'm excited for the city. I'm excited for the area. I'm going to do everything I possibly can to build that, not just for my program, but for everybody."
One reason those schools didn't have to wait to pull the trigger on Wills is that he takes care of business in the classroom. He's well on his way to qualifying with flying colors.
"... Grade wise he's a 3.0+ student." the coach revealed. "When he gets ready to take the ACT he should blow that out of the water. He's earned it. Landon earned it. And it's good to see them work at it and be rewarded for it."
Young, his teammate, committed to Kentucky very shortly after an offer was tendered. It doesn't seem like that will be the case here.
"That's not even been talked about yet." Shaw replied to questions of a quick commitment. "Whatever him and his family decides to do we'll talk about it, we'll reevaluate from there and see what happens. And at the end of the day if he's ready to commit, he'll commit. If he's not, he's not. Whatever they decide as a group that's what we'll do."