University of Texas football coach Mack Brown is old school. When he arrived on the Austin campus, he didn't let players wear earrings on road trips or hats on planes. And he most certainly never offered a scholarship to eighth-graders. Until now.
Following the lead of both LSU and Alabama, Brown became the first Longhorns coach to recruit a middle school kid when he offered Dylan Moses a football scholarship on Wednesday, according to the Dallas Morning News (h/t Big Lead).
The Louisiana State University Lab (Baton Rouge, La.) School eighth-grader is a 6-foot-1, 215-pound running back and defensive back whose maturity goes well beyond his 14 years. He swats away his gridiron peers like King Kong treats planes.
The Texas bid, which Moses announced on Twitter this week, joins Ole Miss, Florida UCLA, Florida State and Nebraska in addition to offers from Nick Saban and Les Miles.
When Moses attended LSU football camps this past summer, coaches clocked his 40-yard dash time at 4.46 seconds and measured his vertical leap at 34 inches, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. And he held his own opposite "some of the best wide receivers in the area," his father Edward Moses Jr. told the paper.
Saban expressed to Dylan that “he didn’t usually offer scholarships to young athletes but that he feels he has the potential to be the No. 1 athlete in the nation,” the father added.
Moses could not play for the University Lab School's varsity football team this past fall after transferring from Baton Rouge's Broadmoore Middle School midway through seventh grade, although he is reportedly running for the varsity track squad this spring.
When he finally makes his debut for U-High football coach Chad Mahaffey next season, he'll have the pleasure of running behind four-star offensive guard Garrett Brumfield, who Rivals.com ranks as the No. 3 player at his position in the Class of 2013.
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