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ShanD is my favorite player in my time as an SMU fan. Granted I was too young for all the glory days, but he was a heckuva a player and a nice guy to boot. ShanD's name got brought up in another thread and while I was looking up his numbers from that fantastic freshman year of his, I ran accross a Mel Kiper Artcile with a section on our very own Mustang mentioned in the same breath as Ced Benson, Caddy Williams, Marion Barber, Kevin Jones, and Frank Gore as stud true frosh RB's. Who knows what might have been had the guy not gotten hurt.

http://proxy.espn.go.com/melkiper/s/200 ... 70607.html

Question for people who follow recruiting closely as that is not something I kept up with much in the Cavan era. Was ShanDerrick a highly recruited player coming out of highschool? Jamal Charles obviously was extremely highly recruited, one of the top 5 RB's or so in the country if I recall correctly. Granted Jamal was 6'1 180 something with a 4.4 40 compared to ShanD who was 5'9 and 170 something. Always wonderd if ShanD's success maybe played any small role in Jamal's recruitment too.

Stallion can answer this far better than I.... but all of this should be preceded by a "If I can recall correctly tag..."

MustangIcon wrote:Always wonderd if ShanD's success maybe played any small role in Jamal's recruitment too.

Both brother's came from the same single A school. Tiny school..... so even though ShanDerrick was shattering records he was not highly recruited at all. So to answer your question, I think the answer has to be yes, because here comes his brother shattering ShanD's records... the fact that he is a few inches taller doesn't hurt.

But I have always felt that ShanD's performance at the next level, significantly inflated Jamaal's stock almost immediately.

Stallion? RecruitingGuru? Anyone out there with more knowledge than I want to chime in?


......

You guys remember a quote years back, after he hung it up about doing whatever he could to get his brother to go to SMU? Or am I just making that up?

I believe both brothers attended school in Port Arthur, ShanDerrick at Port Arthur Lincoln and Jamaal at Port Arthur Memorial. I believe Memorial was 5A when Jamaal was there and I think Lincoln was also 5A, meaning that they played some competition. Also, ShanDerrick was a top 100 State Recruit. This is something I found in a previous post that should clear up if he was recruited.

"Shanderrick is listed by SuperPrep in their preseason magazine as the 63rd best recruit in Texas. He is listed at 5'10", 180 lbs, and runs a 4.5 forty. Superprep says, "Nothing like a little pressure. Coaches in Port Arthur compare ShanDerrick to another local guy by the name of Joe Washington, Jr. "Good vision, has the athletic talent to make the first tackler miss and never takes a direct hit," said coach Richard Williams. He had three 200 yard games in '99 and averaged more than 10 ypc. Favors UNC (childhood fave) slightly over CLEM, Texas, LSU, A$M, Ariz, and ASU. All have offered, but he says he'll wait until after the season to commit. Academics unknown. Tom Lemming did not mention Shanderrick; however, Texas Football lists both Shanderrick and Cedric Vinson in their preseason Texas top 300"

ShanDerrick played at PA Lincoln, but I'm pretty sure it was 3A or one of the smaller 4A.

Jamaal played at Memorial, a consolidation of all Port Arthur schools. Someone with the time or resources to see how many players from his Memorial team are currently playing collegiately would give you an idea of the annual stop Memorial has become for recruiting, but the kid Jamaal split time with during his junior season was James Johnson, the RB at Kansas St via Blinn.

If the Memorial program and lineage didn't promote Jamaal enough, I guess his physique in a track uniform and ability to be at full speed within a few yards and maintained at a high rate over 100 yards convinced any doubters that he was the real deal. Its cliche, but he is a football player running track.

All that said, ShanD was my favorite SMU player, too. We watched film every Sunday after games, and without question, his streak of 200 yd games as a true freshman were the most fun games to watch as a player. During a game things get taken for granted, but watching them 4 or 5 times the next day showed how much of a baller he was.

Thank you for correcting me! I always knew I had my head up my expletive!

Sideline wrote:ShanDerrick played at PA Lincoln, but I'm pretty sure it was 3A or one of the smaller 4A.

You are correct. It was indeed a 3A school. My apologies for the misinformation.