Garrett Harper - athlete Shiloh Christian

[Jimmy Chitwood]

Garrett Harper - Shiloh Christian (Springdale, AR)
5-10, 190-pounds; 4.50 40; 35-inch vertical
tailback/wide receiver/cornerback

Harper is likely the most explosive athlete in Arkansas. he's been virtually unstoppable since he was a 7th-grader, at leastuntil he injured his elbow 3 games into his junior season. you can see highlights from his shortened junior year below.

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Harper leaving would-be tacklers in his wake. now just imagine if he had some hip swivel.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

i am really looking forward to this fall ... Harper should blow up. and maybe, just maybe, he'll get the scholarship offers his talent deserves.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

the caste-ifying of Garrett Harper is already beginning ...

as you'll see from the Rivals profile screen-capturebelow, Harper is listed as a safety. to my knowledge, he's never played safety in his life. when he's on defense, in every game i've seen him play, heplayed strictlyatcornerback. also, please note the gradual slowing of his 40 ... they have him running a 4.53 for some reason, which is odd seeing as how he ran a 4.50 at the Auburn camp last summer. actually it was a 4.49 as shown by this Scout profile, but it was rounded down to 4.50 by most folks.

now, it's an even less impressive looking 4.53 ... despite him not having run again. "weird," huh?

at least ESPN's recruiting board is finally rating him. they have this to say:

Harper is an explosive runner who could see his recruiting stock rise with a big senior season. Solidly built with a low running base and compact body style. A quick hitting running back who gets North without a lot of wasted lateral movement showing good burst and balance ...

also, despite not focusing on track, Harper wasa conference champion in the 200 meters, 400 meters, 4x100 relay, and 4x400 relay this spring. i don't know what his times were, though.

finally, Harper was looking fully recovered from his elbow injury in spring football practice. he scored an 80-yard touchdown the first time he touched the ball in an intra-squad scrimmage.

the following blurb was published on May 30 of this year:

As he crossed each white hashmark, the smile on Garrett Harper's face grew a little wider.


With the football tucked inside his right arm, Harper sliced through a hole at the line and saw an 80-yard expanse of green turf. Granted it was just a scrimmage against Shiloh Christian's second-team defense, but that didn't matter. He was back on the football field after missing most of the 2009 season with a dislocated left elbow.


"It was pretty easy,"Â￾ Harper said of his touchdown the first time he touched the ball in Thursday's spring game. "It was fun."Â￾

Shiloh Christian's Garrett Harper carries the ball upfield during Tuesday's practice in Champions Stadium in Springdale.

 

[Riddlewire]

I didn't want to start a new thread just for this post. And it is at least tangentially related to Harper.

I'm watching this Shiloh vs Euless TX game on TV. It's a display of complete lunacy. Euless might as well be called Utah or Oregon State. I had no idea that Texas was such a hotbed of 400lb Samoans. It must have been incredibly expensive to recruit and relocate all those families. What a sham.
Unfortunately, this is what Arkansas high school football will be in the future. Too much player relocation and no rules to prevent it.

 

[Deadlift]

At Euless Trinity, those are the Tongans whose parents work at the airport - so they can get free miles to fly back to Tonga... Someone posted an article on CF a few years ago.

Generally speaking, though, I wouldn't be surprised if more "Poly-Americans" are moving to Texas from California/Nevada because Texas' cost of living is lower. Also, they might think their sumo children will get more exposure in a "Football State" like Texas...

 

[Riddlewire]

Yeah, the announcer talked about it near the end of the game. But he admitted that it wasn't some natural occurrence. They specifically built that airport community to bring in all those families a couple of decades ago. So it was not only recruiting, but they spent taxpayer dollars to import those giant fatasses for the football team.
What bugged me the most was that the dude had the gall to suggest that the teams were evenly matched because Trinity "has to draw its players from the local community" whereas Shiloh, being a private school gets to use whatever kids they want. Nevermind the fact that the Trinity enrollment numbers in the thousands, whereas Shiloh is under 200 (I think). Shiloh is not allowed to recruit under Arkansas rules. Although I suspect Keeeel Frazier didn't find his way there because he wanted to go to a small Christian school in the NW hills. Still, it seems the the entire population base of Euless was recruited for football. What a convenient loophole in the argument for them.
Ultimately, no high school team on Earth can stop a team with an offensive line that averages 6'4" 320lbs across. I imagine plenty of NAIA colleges would find it difficult to slow Trinity down. And Shiloh is physically small, even compared to the average Arkansas 4A team.

The only good thing that came from this farce of a sacrificial mismatch was that Harper played very well, including a 90+ yard KO return for a touchdown. And receiver Zann Jones consistently torched his coverage, despite taking a few dirty hits. Additionally, black quarterback superstar Frazier proved he's a future bust. Against a tough pass rush, he reverts to TNB and takes off running in circles rather than keeping his eyes downfield. He hurt his team pretty badly throughout the game with his "me first" antics.

 

[Deadlift]

Great points.

Speaking of black quarterbacks, it seems like they all throw like girls. They do their little dinking-and-dunking, and they look so lame.

Maybe their jungle arm physiology makes them inferior at QB!