The Washington Post says that undersized RB Jamar Curtis may be the most dynamic offensive player in the WCAC this year. I think that BC could put this guy to good use. Anyone agree?
High School Sports
He is the best back in one of the nation’s best prep leagues. Why haven’t more people noticed?
St. John's running back Jamar Curtis may be the most dynamic offensive player in the WCAC this year. His recruiting hasn't really taken off, though, in part because of his small stature. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
By Jake Lourim
Today at 2:02 p.m. EDT
This was Nov. 24, 2019, before many people knew the name Jamar Curtis, and fans had packed every row of the stands, swarmed the concourse and lined the fence around Catholic University’s stadium to see two dozen prep prospects ranked higher than him. But when Curtis, then a sophomore, entered the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference championship game, they were in for a treat.
Third down, 16 yards to go, 54 seconds before halftime in the matchup between St. John’s and Good Counsel. The ball was snapped, and the show started. Curtis took the handoff from St. John’s quarterback Sol-Jay Maiava, and as if fired him out of a cannon, Curtis darted through the line. The first player to reach for him was George Wolo, but Curtis was gone in a blur before Wolo could lay a finger on him. Wolo is now a sophomore defensive tackle at Buffalo, where he has 15 tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble this year.
Curtis then cruised into the second level, into a one-on-one battle with Nic Ware. One cut and Curtis was gone, leaving Ware in his tracks. Ware has seven tackles and an interception in his sophomore season at Delaware.
From the side, Mitchell Melton caught up to Curtis and lunged for him with one arm, but Melton tumbled to the turf as Curtis kept running. Melton is a 6-foot-3, 245-pound linebacker at Ohio State, where he played one game last season before suffering an injury in the spring.
Football Top 20: St. John’s, Quince Orchard hold off ranked challengers
Two years later, Curtis is a starter for St. John’s (7-0), the top-ranked team in the area heading into Saturday’s showdown against No. 5 Good Counsel. He has 80 carries for 700 yards and eight touchdowns this season, plus eight catches for 140 yards and two more touchdowns. He’s the best running back in arguably the best high school football league in the country.
And he has four Division I scholarship offers (from Navy, Buffalo, Temple and Marshall) with seven weeks until the early signing period.
What, exactly, is everyone missing?
‘Stuck on measurables’
At this point, it’s worth mentioning one small detail: Curtis is, depending on who you ask, somewhere between 5-6 and 5-8 and weighs 165 pounds.
He checks every other box. He has top-end speed with elite agility. He can run between tackles and catch passes out of the backfield. He has a strong track record against some of the country’s best competition.
And so he becomes a test of how much college coaches worry about undersized running backs. Just how much of a dealbreaker is this?
“I’m not a college coach, so I can’t say what’s in their minds,” St. John’s Coach Pat Ward said. “But I think a lot of times colleges are stuck on measurables.”
There’s an idea that an undersized player’s abilities won’t translate to the next level. But the 2019 WCAC title game should have provided an accurate gauge, and Curtis dusted his competition when he had the chance.
This was not a one-play cameo. The hero of that 2019 game was a Good Counsel kicker named Vince Errigo, who gave the Falcons the lead on a 32-yard field goal with 14 seconds left. But the almost-hero was Curtis, who very nearly returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown. He brought it back to the Good Counsel 32-yard line before St. John’s missed a 49-yard field goal that would have won the game.
Curtis is not an edge case in a far-flung corner of the country waiting to be uncovered years down the road. He is hiding in plain sight.
Players from top local football programs are struggling to attract offers after a mostly lost 2020
“I feel a little underrated nationally,” Curtis said. “But people who know me, they know what I do. They know the work I put in. They know this is nothing new. That’s just what I do.”
In an interview last week, Curtis seemed unconcerned about any size issues. Asked why he thinks he hasn’t had more recruiting attention to this point, he said, “Probably the transfer portal,” referring to a trend of colleges stocking their rosters with immediately eligible transfers rather than developmental high school prospects.
But Curtis’s low profile doesn’t seem to bother him. “I know what I’m capable of,” he said. “I don’t really care about what anybody else says. I just put in work, so I know that work’s going to pay off some day.”
Curtis said he models his game after NFL stars Dalvin Cook (for his vision and elusiveness) and Christian McCaffrey (for his versatility). Cook is listed at 5-10. McCaffrey is 5-11; both weigh more than 200 pounds.
St. John's running back Jamar Curtis, shown in 2019, when he had a breakout sophomore season. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
An example to follow
Around football, there exists a tightknit network of undersized running backs who share a long history of being overlooked. One of their better success stories is that of Kansas State’s Deuce Vaughn, a sophomore running back who stands 5-6 and weighs 173 pounds.
Vaughn split time in the backfield last season, with 642 rushing yards and 434 receiving yards in 10 games. He has almost eclipsed those numbers through seven games this year, with 595 rushing and 302 receiving yards. He ranks 36th in the country with 85.0 rushing yards per game.
And he knows all about the treatment Curtis is receiving.
“The biggest [misconception] for me that I’ve encountered was the fact that I wouldn’t be durable to play this game or I don’t have the prototypical size to be successful,” said Vaughn, who has not missed a game in his college career. “… I’ve really understood that the size that I have is a superpower for me. I feel like I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of things that I do on the football field without it.”
Vaughn looked up to — and chose the same college as — another 5-6 running back who’s a hero to smaller backs everywhere: Darren Sproles. In four years at Kansas State from 2001 to 2004, Sproles rushed for 4,979 yards and 45 touchdowns.
“I’m not saying [Curtis is] Darren Sproles, but he’s Darren Sproles in the WCAC,” Ward said. “I just think in sports in general, there’s a lot of, ‘Oh, if you’re not 6-3, you can’t be a receiver. If you’re not this, you can’t be that.’ And it’s in basketball. But then you have the guys who break those molds all the time.”
Ward has in mind another possibility of how this could work out for Curtis. He could start at a lower-tier school, prove himself and finally convince major colleges his size shouldn’t be a disqualifier. Perhaps the transfer portal that might be boxing out Curtis now could be a gateway for him in the future.
And then, Ward thinks, we could one day see Curtis cutting past defenders in a major bowl game. At some point, people might wonder, “Where did he come from?” And then Ward will shake his head and say, “We told you.”
Jamar Curtis and St. John's play Good Counsel this week. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
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High School Sports
He is the best back in one of the nation’s best prep leagues. Why haven’t more people noticed?
St. John's running back Jamar Curtis may be the most dynamic offensive player in the WCAC this year. His recruiting hasn't really taken off, though, in part because of his small stature. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
By Jake Lourim
Today at 2:02 p.m. EDT
This was Nov. 24, 2019, before many people knew the name Jamar Curtis, and fans had packed every row of the stands, swarmed the concourse and lined the fence around Catholic University’s stadium to see two dozen prep prospects ranked higher than him. But when Curtis, then a sophomore, entered the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference championship game, they were in for a treat.
Third down, 16 yards to go, 54 seconds before halftime in the matchup between St. John’s and Good Counsel. The ball was snapped, and the show started. Curtis took the handoff from St. John’s quarterback Sol-Jay Maiava, and as if fired him out of a cannon, Curtis darted through the line. The first player to reach for him was George Wolo, but Curtis was gone in a blur before Wolo could lay a finger on him. Wolo is now a sophomore defensive tackle at Buffalo, where he has 15 tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble this year.
Curtis then cruised into the second level, into a one-on-one battle with Nic Ware. One cut and Curtis was gone, leaving Ware in his tracks. Ware has seven tackles and an interception in his sophomore season at Delaware.
From the side, Mitchell Melton caught up to Curtis and lunged for him with one arm, but Melton tumbled to the turf as Curtis kept running. Melton is a 6-foot-3, 245-pound linebacker at Ohio State, where he played one game last season before suffering an injury in the spring.
Football Top 20: St. John’s, Quince Orchard hold off ranked challengers
Two years later, Curtis is a starter for St. John’s (7-0), the top-ranked team in the area heading into Saturday’s showdown against No. 5 Good Counsel. He has 80 carries for 700 yards and eight touchdowns this season, plus eight catches for 140 yards and two more touchdowns. He’s the best running back in arguably the best high school football league in the country.
And he has four Division I scholarship offers (from Navy, Buffalo, Temple and Marshall) with seven weeks until the early signing period.
What, exactly, is everyone missing?
‘Stuck on measurables’
At this point, it’s worth mentioning one small detail: Curtis is, depending on who you ask, somewhere between 5-6 and 5-8 and weighs 165 pounds.
He checks every other box. He has top-end speed with elite agility. He can run between tackles and catch passes out of the backfield. He has a strong track record against some of the country’s best competition.
And so he becomes a test of how much college coaches worry about undersized running backs. Just how much of a dealbreaker is this?
“I’m not a college coach, so I can’t say what’s in their minds,” St. John’s Coach Pat Ward said. “But I think a lot of times colleges are stuck on measurables.”
There’s an idea that an undersized player’s abilities won’t translate to the next level. But the 2019 WCAC title game should have provided an accurate gauge, and Curtis dusted his competition when he had the chance.
This was not a one-play cameo. The hero of that 2019 game was a Good Counsel kicker named Vince Errigo, who gave the Falcons the lead on a 32-yard field goal with 14 seconds left. But the almost-hero was Curtis, who very nearly returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown. He brought it back to the Good Counsel 32-yard line before St. John’s missed a 49-yard field goal that would have won the game.
Curtis is not an edge case in a far-flung corner of the country waiting to be uncovered years down the road. He is hiding in plain sight.
Players from top local football programs are struggling to attract offers after a mostly lost 2020
“I feel a little underrated nationally,” Curtis said. “But people who know me, they know what I do. They know the work I put in. They know this is nothing new. That’s just what I do.”
In an interview last week, Curtis seemed unconcerned about any size issues. Asked why he thinks he hasn’t had more recruiting attention to this point, he said, “Probably the transfer portal,” referring to a trend of colleges stocking their rosters with immediately eligible transfers rather than developmental high school prospects.
But Curtis’s low profile doesn’t seem to bother him. “I know what I’m capable of,” he said. “I don’t really care about what anybody else says. I just put in work, so I know that work’s going to pay off some day.”
Curtis said he models his game after NFL stars Dalvin Cook (for his vision and elusiveness) and Christian McCaffrey (for his versatility). Cook is listed at 5-10. McCaffrey is 5-11; both weigh more than 200 pounds.
St. John's running back Jamar Curtis, shown in 2019, when he had a breakout sophomore season. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
An example to follow
Around football, there exists a tightknit network of undersized running backs who share a long history of being overlooked. One of their better success stories is that of Kansas State’s Deuce Vaughn, a sophomore running back who stands 5-6 and weighs 173 pounds.
Vaughn split time in the backfield last season, with 642 rushing yards and 434 receiving yards in 10 games. He has almost eclipsed those numbers through seven games this year, with 595 rushing and 302 receiving yards. He ranks 36th in the country with 85.0 rushing yards per game.
And he knows all about the treatment Curtis is receiving.
“The biggest [misconception] for me that I’ve encountered was the fact that I wouldn’t be durable to play this game or I don’t have the prototypical size to be successful,” said Vaughn, who has not missed a game in his college career. “… I’ve really understood that the size that I have is a superpower for me. I feel like I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of things that I do on the football field without it.”
Vaughn looked up to — and chose the same college as — another 5-6 running back who’s a hero to smaller backs everywhere: Darren Sproles. In four years at Kansas State from 2001 to 2004, Sproles rushed for 4,979 yards and 45 touchdowns.
“I’m not saying [Curtis is] Darren Sproles, but he’s Darren Sproles in the WCAC,” Ward said. “I just think in sports in general, there’s a lot of, ‘Oh, if you’re not 6-3, you can’t be a receiver. If you’re not this, you can’t be that.’ And it’s in basketball. But then you have the guys who break those molds all the time.”
Ward has in mind another possibility of how this could work out for Curtis. He could start at a lower-tier school, prove himself and finally convince major colleges his size shouldn’t be a disqualifier. Perhaps the transfer portal that might be boxing out Curtis now could be a gateway for him in the future.
And then, Ward thinks, we could one day see Curtis cutting past defenders in a major bowl game. At some point, people might wonder, “Where did he come from?” And then Ward will shake his head and say, “We told you.”
Jamar Curtis and St. John's play Good Counsel this week. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
