posted on BN
From the Roanoke paper:
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES
Huguenot High School football coach Richard McFee said Friday that you could flip a coin between Highland Springs running back-defensive back Victor “Macho” Harris, Huguenot cornerback Sean Smalls and Hampton wide receiver Todd Nolen as the best prospect in Virginia.
"And, you’ve got to put [Elan] Lewis in there, too,” said McFee, referring to Phoebus High School’s All-Group AAA running back. “No way in the world you could talk football and not mention him.”
Most services are ranking Harris and Lewis as No. 1 and 2 among the state's top prospects, with Nolen among a small group directly behind them. Smalls is a relatively latecomer to that discussion.
McFee has had Bruce Branch and David Terrell serve as cover corners during his 30-year Huguenot career. Branch went to Penn State and Terrell to Michigan, but Smalls “is the best cover corner I’ve ever coached,” McFee said.
Smalls (6 foot 1, 180 pounds) played his sophomore year at Armstrong High School in Richmond before transferring to Huguenot, where he had six interceptions in 2003.
"I read somewhere that Macho Harris led the Central Region in interceptions,” Harris said. "Don't get me wrong. Macho Harris is a great football player, but, when we met to pick the all-region team, this kid [Smalls] led the region in interceptions. There must have been some mistake, or [Harris] must have intercepted some more passes over Christmas.”
McFee said that Smalls needs to be mentioned in the same breath as Harris and has the scholarship offers to justify that kind of consideration.
McFee said Smalls has written offers from Penn State, UCLA, Southern Cal, Arizona State, Maryland, Ohio State, Michigan and North Carolina. "Virginia Tech and Virginia have said they definitely will offer,” McFee said. “But, we haven’t received anything in writing."
McFee has had a long-standing with Penn State and says that another of his juniors, 6-4, 190-pound wide receiver Kevin Cousins, committed to the Nittany Lions on the junior day that followed a one-day Nike camp in State College, Pa.
“Coach [Joe] Paterno had just signed his four-year contract extension,” McFee said, “and Kevin said, ‘I want to be a part of that.' ”
Cousins had 12 receptions for 283 yards last year -- not eye-catching numbers -- but he ran 40 yards in 4.43 seconds at the Nike camp and also has great academics (4.2 grade-point average; 1,250 SAT) to go with an impressive combination of size and speed.
McFee said that Smalls has a 2.7 GPA, with plans to take the SAT in October. He was timed in 4.45 seconds for the 40 at the Nike camp.
Huguenot and Hampton do not normally play, but they scrimmaged last year, with Smalls drawing the assignment against the Crabbers’ Nolen.
“Nolen didn’t catch a pass against him,” McFee said. “We tell Sean, 'Here's your man.' Then, we try to get everybody else straight.' "
