Gryphons' Greene, Sanders see recruiting attention heat up

Rocky Mount High linebacker Sherrod Greene, right, reacts with teammate KK Edwards following the Gryphons NCHSAA 3-A state championship win over South Point on Friday at Kenan Memorial Stadium.
©Telegram photo / Adam Jennings

Rocky Mount High running back BJ Sanders reacts following the Gryphons NCHSAA 3-A state championship win over South Point on Friday at Kenan Memorial Stadium.
©Telegram photo / Adam Jennings

Rocky Mount High linebacker Sherrod Greene won’t be afraid to choose the school and football program that fits him best, even if it’s a few hundred miles and a few states away. His mom, Chanda Underwood, has said that she’ll move to wherever he attends school, so she can watch his games.

It’s a good thing, then, that Greene has his mother’s blessing, because the national recruiting attention has started to pick up steam around the Telegram’s 2015 All-Area Defensive Player of the Year.

Defending national champion Alabama is the latest blue-chip program to get in on Greene’s recruitment. Crimson Tide outside linebackers coach Tosh Lupoi visited Rocky Mount High on Tuesday to speak with Gryphons head coach Jason Battle and watch a brief workout that Greene and a group of players conducted.

Lupoi invited Greene to a camp in Tuscaloosa on June 11, saying it would be an opportunity for Greene to perform in front of Alabama head coach Nick Saban and potentially earn an offer.

“I know Alabama is a big school, and they recently won a championship, so that’s pretty cool to me,” Greene said Thursday. “But, I really don’t know much about Alabama. I kinda see ACC, SEC, all that, as the same. It doesn’t matter to me. It all depends where I feel most comfortable at the end of the day.”

Greene earned his first SEC offer on Jan. 21 from South Carolina, and he’s been hearing from defending ACC champion Clemson this week.

The 6-foot-1, 220-pound linebacker recorded 154 tackles, 11 tackles for loss and five sacks in helping lead Rocky Mount High to the NCHSAA 3-A state title last December, the program’s first football championship in 52 years.

Greene said he would use this summer to take as many visits as possible, including to Alabama and Clemson, in order to gauge his comfort level at the schools that have recently started recruiting him. He’s familiar with schools like N.C. State, North Carolina and Virginia Tech, having spent time on each campus, but wants to get a better picture of what life could look like on campus at different programs.

Tuesday’s visit from Alabama followed up Greene’s invitation to Nike’s The Opening, an event for the country’s most elite college prospects in Oregon in July. Greene attended a Nike combine in Charlotte last weekend and recorded a 40-yard dash of 4.8 seconds and a 33.5-inch vertical jump, then performed well enough in the position drills to impress coaches and earn one of just six invites from the regional event.

“I didn’t know nothing about me going to Oregon before the combine even started, so I was actually shocked,” Greene said. “I never thought I’d go anywhere that far. Out of all the guys who were at my position, how good they all were, it was an honor. I’m gonna have to bring my A-game out there.”

For Gryphons running back and kick returner BJ Sanders, Tuesday was the payoff for months and months of patience.

Charleston Southern outside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator Josh Miller sent Sanders a direct message on Twitter to check in, and Sanders responded, saying he was in the weight room and bench pressing 315 pounds.

Miller heard that figure — 315 pounds for a 5-foot-9 running back — and said, “Holy ****, you got any offers?”

“No, sir,” Sanders replied.

“Well, today is your lucky day,” Miller said, as Sanders recounted on Thursday afternoon. “Our staff loves you, and you have an offer from us.”

Charleston Southern, a program in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly D-1AA) and the 2015 Big South Conference champions, became college offer No. 1 for Sanders.

“Charleston Southern said they had me way up their on board of running backs,” Sanders said. “I know they’re FCS but they play against really top schools and put up some points on some of these big schools, plus they got a ring this year, so I’m definitely looking at them.”

Recruiting activity has picked up exponentially in the last two weeks for Sanders, who rushed for 1,287 yards and 15 touchdowns for the 3-A state champion Gryphons as a junior. Gardner-Webb is close to offering a scholarship, and Sanders has received camp invites to James Madison, Old Dominion, and Appalachian State. He plans to camp at all of those schools, plus ECU, this summer.

By Foster Lander
Sports Writer for Rocky Mount Telegram

Wednesday, April 27, 2016