It may not have been a Megatron (Calvin Johnson)-caliber, all-time grab, but it was awfully close.
In Matthews (N.C.) Butler High's season-ending 40-26 loss to Greensboro (N.C.) Page High, Butler wide receiver Kam Billings found himself in man coverage along the left sideline. He waited, saw Butler quarterback Riley Ferguson let go of the football, posted up his man, and jumped.
What he did next was the kind of instinctive reaction that can make a good player a truly great one. Somehow, Billings found a way to get a big paw up in the air, snagged the ball in mid-air at full extension at the absolute apex of his leap, then came down with his feet in-bounds for a huge catch that moved the Bulldogs inside the Page 10-yard line.
The catch set up a Butler touchdown, one of three touchdowns the Bulldogs scored before Page found the end zone. Ferguson was on fire during that assault, passing for 347 yards and three touchdowns in the first half alone, an astounding pace which he eventually couldn't keep up; he completed just three passes in the second half, adding 84 yards to his first-half totals.
A handful of those yards came in the form of passes to Billings, who gave an impressive lasting impression in his final appearance as a junior, with the loss ending the Bulldogs' season in the third round of the North Carolina Class 4-AA playoffs, short of the team's goal of defending its state title.
Whether the earlier-than-anticipated exit has any affect on Billings' recruitment -- he's reportedly being chased by the likes of Virginia, Wake Forest, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh -- remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: Pulling in a catch like that certainly doesn't hurt.
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