BEVO BEAT Football

The Austin American-Statesman’s 2017 Fab 55: Nos. 10-1

Posted April 15th, 2016

Ryan Autullo American-Statesman Staff

@autulloaas

Over Thursday and Friday, the American-Statesman will unveil its initial Fabulous 55 of the state’s top football recruits in the class of 2017.

It’ll be broken into five parts — 55-41, 40-31, 30-21, 20-11 and 10-1 — and will conclude with a feature story on Marvin Wilson — the list’s top-ranked player — an interactive online map, an online photo gallery of the players and the entire list in print on Saturday.

Here’s part five with players ranked Nos 10-1.

10. Sam Ehlinger, QB, Westlake (6A), 6-1/215, Committed to Texas — the ultimate freelancer who thrives under duress. Could be the solution to Texas’ prolonged QB problem.

9. Lagaryonn Carson, DE, Texarkana Liberty-Eylau (4A), 6-4/260, Committed to Texas — overwhelms smaller blockers in 4A, but there’s no reason to think bigger blockers would hold up much better.

8. Anthony Hines, ILB, Plano East (6A), 6-2/222, Undecided — thumps like an inside backer, runs like a safety. Wonderful athlete with long arms. He reports 82 scholarships offers. Yes, 82.

7. Austin Deculus, OT, Cy-Fair (6A), 6-6/323, Undecided — Cy-Fair’s offensive coordinator keeps it simple and runs the ball behind this mammoth road grader.

6. Tyrese Robinson, G, McKinney Boyd (6A), 6-4/310, Committed to Oklahoma — After signing just three 2016 players from Texas, Oklahoma is cleaning up in 2017 with commitments from six Fab 55 members. The highest ranked member of the group is Robinson, who is flat out mean and overpowers all comers.

5. Jeffrey Okudah, S, South Grand Prairie (6A), 6-1/194, Undecided — nation’s top-ranked safety might actually be better at cornerback. It’d probably be wise to try him out on offense, too. Amazing athlete.

4. J.K. Dobbins, RB, La Grange (4A), 5-9/199, Committed to Ohio State — unbelievable change in direction and bounces off of defenders. Averaged 9.5 yards a carry last year after averaging 12.1 the year before.

3. Jack Anderson, G, Frisco (5A) 6-5/300, Committed to Texas Tech — bigger programs won’t go away quietly in pursuit of Anderson, a five-star prospect and a Texas Tech legacy. If Kliff Kingsbury can hold onto him, Anderson will be a day one starter in Lubbock.

2. Baron Browning, OLB, Kennedale (4A), 6-3/230, Undecided — his shedding of blocks is a thing of beauty. So is his ability to drop into coverage and blanket much smaller receivers. 

1. Marvin Wilson, DT, Bellaire Episcopal (SPC), 6-4/329, Undecided — the phrase “unblockable” is thrown around too much. Wilson is unblockable. Too, he’s impressively slender for someone of his size.

 

News on Bevo Beat is free and unlimited. Access to the rest of Hookem.com is included with an Austin American-Statesman subscription in addition to Statesman.com and the ePaper edition. Subscribe today at statesman.com/subscribe.