The Athletic – Tabetha Gillespie remembers from the time her son was in second grade him wanting to stay out until midnight playing basketball. Truth be told, her son Harlan only decided to come out for the Hoxie (Kansas) High School football team two years ago to get in better shape for basketball season.
“His love is truly for basketball,” she says, “so for him to start getting all of these football scholarships, we’re like, ‘Whaaat?’ ”
Harlan Obioha is the biggest curiosity in college football recruiting this year. Literally. The biggest.
He says he is now 7 feet tall and weighs 300 pounds, which would make him taller than any FBS player the sport has seen in decades. He plays eight-man football in a town of 1,145 in northwest Kansas. And, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, no Division I coach has been able to watch him in person. But thanks to a two-minute highlight tape on Hudl, scholarship offers are now rolling in.
And honestly he does look pretty nimble for a guy with Andre the Giant proportions. The basketball training will likely help his feet for that.
I’ve genuinely got no clue where Harlan Obioha will end up and whether he will look as good against college competition. There’s likely a reason that guys his size don’t come around too often.
But I have to say after watching that highlight reel: would there be anything more fun than being Harlan Obioha in a high school game? They didn’t even have to put the arrow on him like they did, you just have to look for the guy who looks like two of his teammates sewn together like Vincent Adultman:
And Harlan Obioha absolutely OBLITERATES everyone that he comes in contact with because they’re legitimately a foot or more shorter and 120 pounds lighter. In college, especially if he does go to a Power 5 school, he’ll see much bigger, stronger guys. They won’t bounce off of him like pinballs. But right now, in high school, this has to be the most fun you can have as a football player. Immediate intimidation factor and equally immediate results. Can you imagine having to run 40 or 50 plays against him as some classic undersized high school lineman? Even double teams don’t seem able to meaningfully slow him down thanks to the lateral quickness he’s picked up from basketball. It’s a nightmare at this level even if he never plays a down past his senior year.
I’m curious to see where Harlan Obioha ends up and I genuinely hope he does well. If my alma mater USC wants to bring back some of that Reggie Bush greatness, I’d start with the Big Show here. But the memories of high school will be forever hard to top. He’s Shawn Oakman without the off-field issues, he’s Zeus atop a mountain, he’s Bowser in the castle. He’s the final boss of high school football and all these average sized kids are left smashing their controllers in frustration. That’s the kind of dominance most of us can only ever dream to experience. Cherish it, Harlan.
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